Matching Tracksuits

ameryka

iParty

Thursday 7 June 2007

The internet has produced a lot of oddities, as well as its fair share of stupidity. When everyone thinks they’re being anonymous, they feel they have license to say and do whatever.

On the other hand, the opposite is possible (not to mention more popular): using the internet to make a name for oneself.

Occasionally, we find cases of the latter that should have been cases of the former. At least once, it’s cost someone quite a bit.

One such instance was a bust here in Asheville over the weekend.

A party invitation posted on MySpace.com that advertised all you could drink for $5 has led to charges against the hosts of aiding underage drinking and selling alcohol without a permit.

Agents who raided the weekend gathering at an Asheville apartment complex also discovered a pinata filled with condoms and sex toys, underscoring the danger of young people attending parties put on by strangers, said Allen Page, assistant district supervisor for N.C. Alcohol Law Enforcement. […]

The agency was alerted to the party through an anonymous fax showing a printout of a MySpace page, he said.

The posting said the party would start at 11 p.m. Saturday at 161 Edgewood Road, Apartment 2. It said patrons could get all they wanted to drink for $5 and that a pinata would be broken during the gathering.

Two undercover officers paid the admission charge and went inside, where they found a keg of beer in the bathtub, he said. State agents and Asheville police officers made arrests early Sunday after getting a search warrant.

It’s no longer unusual for ALE agents to learn about illegal house parties though Internet postings on Web sites such as MySpace, the popular social networking site, Page said. (Asheville Citizen-Times)

A 21st-century bust aided by 20th-century technology, abetted by a fair amount of stupidity from the perpetrators…

Teaching Trotsky

Saturday 2 June 2007

Given the fact that the lads in the program had a very weak grasp on recent history, I decided to do a six-weeks’ grading period on 20th century history. A hundred years in six weeks means 16.7 years per week, and I knew it would be a very rough overview at best. That said, I started in 1917, with the Russian Revolution.

“Why are we studying this crap?” one asked. He’d been keen on learning about the 20th century, but an obscure revolution led by people with “weird” names in a country on the other side of the globe was not what he had in mind.

“Because what came out of the revolution, namely the Soviet Union and the totalitarian Communist state, shaped much of the 20th century.” Already I knew that I was painting with broad strokes. The revolution had produced a communist state, but it wasn’t immediately totalitarian — unless you happened to be in the upper class. Value judgments aside, I went on.

We looked at the revolution, the outcome, and then spent most of our time on the Stalinist Soviet Union.

The classic free-market critique of communism is that it destroys incentive. If I’m going to get my needs met whether or not I work, why should I work? If I know that no matter how hard I work, I’m going to get the same rewards, why not just do what’s necessary to get by? I used to think “Whether or not this argument is valid on a scale large enough to make an impact on society’s production remains to be seen,” but then I lived in Poland in the years just after the fall of communism. What I experienced were people who were supposed to be helping me — after all, by my shopping in their store, I was paying their salary — sitting and reading a newspaper, then looking up with an expression of disgust and saying, “What?”

A consultant who’s been working with our program mentioned later, as an aside admittedly unrelated to his job description, that he felt I’d painted with strokes too broad and therefore misleading. He felt I’d blurred the lines between Stalinism and communism and that the lads would equate the two as being necessarily connected, synonymous even.

“Communism doesn’t have to end in totalitarianism,” he pointed out.

True enough, but I began thinking about this and realized something that one thing missing from the discussion is scale. To have a small-scale commune is one thing; to have an entire country that is communist is something entirely different. Small-scale communism can work because it can foster a tighter community spirit — it can be more like “family.” You’re less likely to cheat someone whom you know, with whom you share common values, etc. Small-scale communism also tends to be more voluntary. Choice goes a long way in determining how much you’ll play “within the rules” of a given society. Bottom line, because of the community sentiment and the voluntary nature, small-scale communism tends to be ideologically self-sufficient.

Marxism suffers from fatal oversimplification: all workers are saints and all owners are devils. There are saints and sinners among workers and owners alike, and communism cannot overcome the inherent selfish nature that so many of us have.

State-scale communism, however, is not ideologically self-sufficient, and it’s largely anonymous. Corruption arises more easily when you have no idea whom you’re cheating. Add the fact that communism historically has not been “voluntary” and you have an instant recipe for Animal Farm-type “cheating.” And since it’s not voluntary and the state has to keep a lot of people “in line,” it’s easy enough to evolve into a police state.

Talking with the consultant later about this, I sketched out the above thoughts, concluding that, to my knowledge, there’s not a single modern communist state that hasn’t evolved into a totalitarian regime.

He suggested Cuba. Aside from the imprisoned political dissidents, the fact that Cubans are shut up behind their own “Iron Curtain”, and the lack of any oppositional political party, I guess I’d agree…

Good Job!

Friday 1 June 2007

Before getting to work, employees gather for daily recognition. The supervisor gets up and says,

Today, we’re going to recognize a few people for their outstanding achievements of late. Bob, great job coming to work on time! We all appreciate that. Susan, excellent work meeting that deadline. We gave you plenty of time and you came through! Last but not least, Johnny — I asked you to write a report and you did it! Excellent!

A story the other morning on NPR showed that, ridiculous as it might be, such things are going on all over the States.

Companies are hiring consultants to help manage the “over praised” Me Generation. […] Forget Employee of the Month — how about Employee of the Day! Some managers are resistant, saying the only praise they ever got was a paycheck. (NPR)

The commentator — herself a twenty-something — mentioned that the Me Generation has grown up in an environment where parents are terrified that their kids are not going to develop self-esteem, so they praise them to death

The results, it seems, are quite the opposite. We seem to have a generation that can’t cope without constant praise. Instead of raising strong, independent people, these parents have created kudos-holics: people who can’t — or won’t — function without praised heaped on daily.

Graveyard Fields

Wednesday 30 May 2007

Memorial Day we took the Girl and the babcia for a hike at Graveyard Fields. A short, easy hike: probably less than 4.5 miles all told.

Babcia at Graveyard Fields

Along the way, new flora continually caught J’s eye. “What’s this?” and “What’s that?” and “Is this X? It must be!”

“Nie wiem” became the phrase of the day, renewing (for about the 100th time, at least) my desire/resolve to learn more about plants.

Babcia looks at the flora

L “met” a young lady named N who, despite being two months younger, was significantly smaller.

L, meet E...

And of course we took lots of pictures of the Girl.

Girl III

Blue Ridge Parkway

Tuesday 15 May 2007

Having J in America has meant re-visiting a lot of places: Biltmore, parks, etc.

This weekend we finally went out to the Blue Ridge Parkway, specifically Craggy Gardens…

And Mount Mitchell

It was, I believe, J’s first “true” picnic. The tradition in Poland is equally pleasant, but a little more “adult.” It involves a bonfire, some sausage, and a lot of vodka.

The last part is optional, but once you say “yes” to an offered drink, turning down a subsequent shot is virtually impossible.

And that’s why the thought of posting “No Alcoholic Beverages!” signs was somewhat odd for J.

Put your roots in the air like you just don’t care?

Monday 14 May 2007

This weekend, we took J to Biltmore. We were hoping the gardens would be more fully developed (i.e., more in bloom), but the frigid spell in April literally nipped everything in the bud.

While out in the garden, though, we saw a most unusually tree.

Mystery

J had never seen anything like it, and I, not knowing a single thing about trees, was at even more of a loss.

Anyone have any idea what’s going on here?

Chimney Rock

Wednesday 2 May 2007

Sunday was the second time we’d been to Chimney Rock. The first time, we were sans L, sans camcorder, sans D70. That, of course, means lots of images of the Girl and a bit of video of the girl.

L began the day in my custody:

Chimney Portrait

But fussiness overwhelmed her about 2/3 of the way through the outing — only K could comfort (what alliteration).

Mom and Girl above Falls

More pictures at Flickr; video coming soon.

Homestead

Tuesday 24 April 2007

Over the weekend, my folks and I took K and J on a quick tour of Bristol — my hometown. As Steve Earle sing’s, “Ain’t nothin’ brings ya down like your hometown.” Talk about making someone feel old. The realization that what happened at that street corner or in that church building was not merely a couple of years ago but more like fifteen or twenty plants my feet solidly in my mid-thirties.

We began the weekend with a trip to Natural Tunnel.

Then it was off to Bristol, stopping at South Holston Dam first:

By the time we got to Bristol, we simply decided to stay in the car and show J downtown (such as it is — though much more lively than when I lived there) and the old house.

Pictures at Flickr.

“Background Check? We don’t need no stinkin’ background check”

Friday 20 April 2007

Cho Seung-hui went through the mandatory background check before buying the guns he used in his rampage. No criminal record, no problem.

Yet…

  • He’d been admitted to a mental health care unit within the last eighteen months.
  • Teachers and students alike commented on his disturbing behavior.
  • Complaints had been made about his behavior.
  • A professor had raised concerns about the content of his writing.

But what kind of a background check could have discovered all this?

If if someone has recently received significant mental health care in the same state he’s trying to buy a gun, it’s conceivable that that information could be available. But since there’s no national database of such information, all one would have to do is cross the state line.

Do we want a national database to record that kind of information? I don’t think I do.

Do we want to have background checks that include interviews with former educators? Is that even feasible?

Just what kind of background check can stop someone like this from getting a gun? The only solutions I can think of involve national databases and inquiries into very personal information.

Irony

Friday 13 April 2007

A woman spends a fair amount of time at Ingles wiping off the handle of the shopping cart and anything near it, and then goes in and buys seemingly countless amounts of soda…

Souma yergon, sou nou yergon…

Thursday 8 March 2007

Throughout much of the world, March 8 is a day to celebrate “the economic, political and social achievements of women.” It’s International Women’s Day, and though it was (according to Wikipedia) first celebrated in America, it’s not widely known here. Perhaps the fact that the organization that initiated it was the Socialist Party of America. And most places that still celebrate it with any real vigor are (or were) communist or socialist. (In the minds of many Americans, those terms are equivocal, I know.)

Extra points for knowing the significance of the title without resorting to Google.

Poland is one such country. Though I lived there for seven years, Women’s Day never worked its way into my unconscious cultural calendar. I took the cues from those around me and never really made an effort to remember it myself.

In retrospect, that was a very bad idea. That realization occurs most forcefully when you marry a Polish woman and then come home March 8 empty handed…

At the Tone

Tuesday 6 March 2007

J (K’s mother) has a new Polish friend (call her “M”) here in town: a retired doctor who just moved to the area. They met the “Welcome to America” party we threw J a couple of weeks after her arrival. They hit it off, and exchanged telephone numbers, with the promise of getting together again soon.

J called M a few days later. She didn’t get in touch with M, but left a message. J waited a few days, and, after hearing nothing, called M again. And again, no answer. J left another message and, after a few more days, began getting concerned.

Eventually, M returned the call. M, however, didn’t know she was returning a call, for the first thing she asked J was “Why didn’t you call?”

“I did call,” J said, explaining the messages she left on the answering machine.

“There were no messages from you,” M said. She suggested they hang up and J try to call and leave a message again.

J hung up, waited a couple of seconds, and called. She left a message, then waited. M called back in about ten minutes, asking why she hadn’t called.

“But I did call,” J confusedly protested.

M asked to talk to K, and asked K to do the same. “Maybe she’s doing something wrong?” M suggested.

K dialed. She left the message. M called back shortly and confirmed receipt of the message.

Then K had an idea. She had her mom dial the number, and it was all clear.

Though she was calling from a cell phone, J didn’t know that she had to put the area code in as well. M, in fact, didn’t include it on the piece of paper she’d given J.

“But what about the voice I heard?” J asked.

And so K explained what “Message JG-23…” means.

Early Thanksgiving

Monday 5 March 2007

K’s mom obviously won’t be here for Thanksgiving, but we still wanted to give her some idea of what it’s like. So my mom did the obvious: cooked a small Thanksgiving dinner.

Turkey Plus

Turkey, dressing, potatoes, green beans, giblet gravy, rolls and a nice chardonnay. And of course for dessert, sweet potato pie.

The dressing and the pie were the big hits. Made from cornbread (itself a novelty), the dressing is doubly unlike anything in Polish cuisine. As for the pie, the notion of doing anything with a tuber other than boiling it and serving it with salt and pepper is fairly foreign to the village Polish way of cooking.
Talking about Thread, Watching the Game

After dinner, it was time to pull out the thread collection and discuss one of those things that crosses most all western cultural boundaries: crafts.

Dispatch from the South

Friday 9 February 2007

A week into J’s visit (J being K’s mother) and she finally went out shopping. I took her on our weekly grocery rounds yesterday afternoon, wondering what she’d think of the wonders of American consumer choice, which plays itself out practically in a grocery store that has an entire row of paper towels.

This is not the first time J has been to America. She came for a visit almost ten years ago, but I think she stayed fairly exclusively in the safely Polish sections of Chicago.

When I returned to America after a couple of years in Poland, it was that choice over-kill that shocked me. I’d grown used to little corner stores where I stood on one side of the counter and the food and grocer were on the other, and I had to as for everything by name (which does wonders for language learning). She didn’t comment on the paper towels though.

I kept an eye on J, hoping to see what might catch her eye. It was finally in Ingles that she showed some real excitement. We passed an isle display of a particularly southern snack and her eyes light up and she began, “Oh, these are those, those, those,” searching for what in the heck you’d call fried pork rinds in Polish.

Thinking she couldn’t possibly realize what these things were, I said “the skin of” and she found her word. The best word for something as untranslatable as “pork rinds.”ïPork Rinds

“Pig chips!” she cried. “Oh, we loved these. We ate them all the time!”

She had me translate each flavor for her so she could pick the one she wanted: cheddar.

“Of all the things for her to get excited about,” I thought, putting a bag of fried pork skin into my shopping cart for the first time in my life.

Strong Son

Monday 5 February 2007

According to the Washington Post:

Ryan O’Neal says his weekend arrest came after he fired a gun in self-defense to prevent his son from w him with a fireplace . […]

O’Neal’s son Griffin, 42, who has a history of alcohol and problems, was visiting. O’Neal said Griffin grabbed a fireplace , started swinging it and grazed him four or five times. (Source)

He ripped an entire fireplace out of the wall and swung it at his father? That’s some strength.

In all seriousness, I’ve noticed quite a few such mistakes in the Post lately. In all fairness, this is an AP story, but still…

How K and I Spent Saturday Afternoon

Sunday 15 October 2006

Translating course descriptions from Polish:

The course is presented in two parts. In the first part regarding the cadastre basics (semester V: professor Hycner), the course covers basic information regarding issues of land and building cadastre in Poland. The second portion regarding real estate economy (semester VI: Dr. Rutkowski), the course covers basic information regarding spatial development planning basics and information regarding real estate economy basics. The part regarding cadastre basics develops problems connected with establishing the land and building cadastre based on the existing land and building register. It also covers acquiring, storing, and actualizing cadastre information, which is developed in the laboratory, and students prepare cadastre documentation for a portion of the cadastral unit � using the most modern computer technology.

I was going to try to ramble on in a style similar to the original Polish of all these course descriptions, but it’s too hard. I guess you have to be “prof. dr hab. inz” to write like that…

The worst part is that for our purposes, we have to translate this as close to “word for word” as possible. A literal word for word translation, as in most cases, would make less than no sense. But the catch is that these are the writings of engineers and surveyors — in Polish they read awfully. So we’re trying to strike a “delicate” balance.

Translating anything is bad enough. Translating poorly written material is a nightmare.

One Foot On Each Continent

Thursday 6 July 2006

Only when you have lived in two countries can you really appreciate the fact that there is no perfect country. But that appreciation comes with a price — homelessness.

My adventure with kielbasa and vodka began ten years ago last month, when I packed off for what I thought would be two years in central Europe. Little did I know — I lived there for seven years, all told.

The fact that I returned shows that I really didn’t need the last four years to call the place “home.” I’m still not even close to fluent in Polish (nor will I ever be) and the average Pole can still drink me under the table (though I’m not ashamed of that), but somehow the sausage and freezing winters did something to my DNA, and I feel at least partially Polish.

Every time I came back to the States, I lived through reverse culture shock. I immediately hated it and loved it: the ability to get humus at four in the morning versus a culture that seems to be in love with kitche; a hundred kilometers in under an hour versus ridiculous health insurance.

It was even worse moving back the first time. Poland called to me even in my dreams. When I went back for a visit after a year in Poland — culture shock, of a sort. “I can’t believe I lived here!”

Yet there was a strange comfort there, and so I went back, fully aware of the challenges and fully prepared for the material sacrifices. A few days after arriving, I wrote in my journal: “Will I ever learn to be happy with my life as it is at that very moment?”

I hated it. And stayed four more years.

Back to America, full of high hopes, and I hate it again.

Once you live in another culture, your legs are knocked out from under you. You see the silver lining and the disgusting grey of both cultures, and you realize you’ll probably never be entirely happy in either.

Myopic America: Thoughts on the Fourth of July

Tuesday 4 July 2006

Kinga and I have now been back in the States a little over a year. That, combined with the date, makes it appropriate to share some of the thoughts I’ve been having about America lately.

If you were to ask Kinga, after a year here, “What do you think of America?” she’d answer unhesitatingly and unflinchingly, “I hate it.” No, this is not going to turn into an America-bashing diatribe, but I have to admit that, on some level, I do too. Not the people, or the culture, or the government, or even the geography.

I hate the paradox of America.

America in so many ways is an amazing nation. We have freedoms unimagined in other countries. Think of the David Irving conviction for Holocaust denial in Austria and the trial of Oriana Fallaci in Italy for insulting Islam. Such nonsense doesn’t happen here, and the fact that I grew up here explains why I call it “nonsense.” Freedom of speech is so engrained in my thinking that I hate to imagine the purgatorial existence life without it would constitute. Freedom of religion, freedom from religion, protection against unwarranted police action (though this could of late be qualified with “some degree of “), access to legal remediation of wrongs done to us – the list could continue for a few more lines. Additionally, we have attained a standard of living in one short year in America that we would not have in three years in Poland. The economy there is simply shot.

The wealth of this country is unbelievable as well, at least on the surface. The majority of us have a standard of living here that few in the world enjoy. We have a highway system on a scale that beats anything I’ve ever seen. Anything and everything is literally available at any time of day.

And yet…

That wealth is illusory. Who owns our houses, our cars, our computers and furniture – most anything that costs more than we’re able to pay in cash? Banks. We “common” folk have a medium income of roughly $42,000. The average CEO makes $11 million, more in one day than the average American makes in a year. So there is wealth, it’s just not evenly distributed.

The freedoms I speak of are, more often than not, abused. Lawsuits increase, insurance goes up, and in the end, it’s the same story – a few (the winning plaintiffs) getting rich off the toil of the many.

The amazing freedom of speech we have results in what? Thoughtful public debate about issues? Certainly not – talk shows!

America was once a leader in technology and development. We were the first to fly, the first to land on the moon (oops – not the first in space…), the first this, the first that. Americans used to dominate the world of computer programming. And now?

The most amazing thing about this country is also, at the moment, the most ridiculous: our government. We’re bogged down in Iraq; “democratic Afghanistan” is a joke, as the Taliban slowly reasserts itself and Christians almost get executed for being just that; our reliance of fossil fuels is beginning to cause real problems; we’ve lost world respect with the shameful holding facility at Guantanamo Bay; New Orleans has still not fully recovered from the trilateral fiasco of local, state, and national “leadership”; the Bush administration is taking unparalleled liberties with our liberties – and what does Congress do about it? Why, debate the pressing issues of gay marriage and flag burning, of course.

The paradox of America is that it is shortsighted. It’s a young country and it acts the part, especially of late – the blustering machismo of a sixteen-year-old. As a nation, as a populous, we don’t look beyond our own noses. The average American, I would wager, has no idea why gas prices have doubled before our eyes. The fact that SUV sales in the first quarter of 2006 were on par with 2005 growth expectations despite rocketing fuel costs shows the American mindset perfectly. It’s all about short-term material pleasure. In American Axle & Manufacturing’s first quarter fiscal report for 2006, we read, “We are encouraged by the initial market acceptance of GM’s new full-size SUVs and look forward to supporting the launch of GM’s new full-size pick-ups later this year.” (Source) Yes – be encouraged by this recklessly myopic market phenomenon! You’ll make money from it!

American Axle & Manufacturing’s good news is indeed good from a certain perspective: it will provide, in theory, jobs. But to Americans? I doubt it. Perhaps the most striking examples of myopic America are the education and health care systems. America lags so far behind the rest of the western world in providing education and universal health care for its citizens that it would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.

Not only do many citizens have to scrounge to afford a university education, but the education provided to the public for free (i.e., primary and secondary schools) is so far academically behind the rest of the world that we’re literally laughed at. Some months ago, when I told Kinga what I was working on with eleventh and twelfth graders in general math while substitute teaching, she laughed, “We did that in fourth and fifth grade.”

Yet nothing compares to the chasm between American and European health care. When Polish friends moved to Belgium, the total hospital cost for delivering their second baby was around two hundred euros. Two hundred euros. I doubt you can get much more than an aspirin in an American hospital for that.

Are any of these situations improving? If so, I’ve yet to see evidence of it. Yet, hope and cliches spring eternal…

What I feel most often on the Fourth of July now is mild sadness. I don’t expect America to fall in some spectacular way, but rather to dim slowly, like a candle in an oxygen-starved room. It will burn, but it won’t provide any light to speak of.

The Fourth of July, I’m afraid, will eventually not be a day of pride. It won’t be filled with fireworks and patriotic speeches about sacrifice and a noble cause. It will be a day of remembrance, a day to recall how powerful this nation used to be. A day to recall how we traded our independence for SUVs and iPods.