INTERESTING TIMES

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,
and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things
cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth
all one's lifetime.
–Mark Twain

This is a great post with a few specifics about gestures that mean something different in other places.
http://www.scienceofpeople.com/2014/07/gestures-shouldnt-making-abroad/
by Michiel Andreae from The Netherlands
( Read more... )

I was wearing my new black PEACE T-shirt, that says shalom in Hebrew and something analogous in Arabic.  We were walking back to our condo along the coastal trail in Kapa'a, and I stopped in the restroom to let off happy hour.  While I was in there the locals accosted Will and he approached a pack of 4 guys and one gal who were hanging out by a sign.  One guy tried to sell him some herb, and when he didn't want any, asked to buy some.  When I came out of the rest room, I approached Will and the gang at the sign, and the woman asked if he was my man, and said something about how I should tell those guys to be nice to him.  At this point two of the guys left, leaving only the two, one young, one old, crouched beside the sign.  The woman, who turns out to be named Laura and has lived 44 years on Kauai, is of hispanic origin as indicated by her perturbation of my name.  She was tipsy.  Had all her teeth so I didn't suspect meth.  The remaining two brown men never entered the conversation, they stared at the ground and sneaked peeks at us when we looked away.  The woman kept talking about clothing and climates and places she had been, and Will was polite and engaged.  I was watching his back, watching our backs, because there were a lot of people toward the beach from us and the men weren't acting friendly.  A white man, drunk, passed by us and I turned to watch him.  He approached me and said we should not be at this beach, "It is not a good beach, not good people" and he told me we should move along.  He shook my hand and left.  I started backing away from Laura, and turning around to watch the goings ons in the parking lot.  My body language would tell anyone that I was watching for hazards and extricating myself from her.  Eventually Will managed to get away and she finally took the cue and made her goodbyes.  I didn't need to hear any more about her clothing challenges when traveling.  I know how cold it can be in Oregon.  And I didn't want to be around if the natives were restless.  I do think she was trying to protect us.  Thank you Laura and all the peace loving people of the world.  Thank you for tolerating the clueless tourists.

Arabian peninsula = Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Leb¬anon, Oman, Palestinian territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

MERS is the viral infection that's causing severe respiratory disease in lots of folks over there. There have been just a few cases in the US, starting in May. I'm wondering if military personel are coming back sick? Apparently pretty much all of the camels on the Arabian peninsula have this virus. We don't know if it causes chronic infections, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did, considering what we are learning about viral DNA mingled with our own.

The
farther
one
goes
The
less
one
knows.

--Tao Te Ching

There’s a big difference between riding a coal train through Kansas and Nebraska and trying to write. Writing is a suspension of life. I believe that so-called writer’s block is something that any writer is going to experience every day, but in a minor way. You break through some kind of membrane, and then you go into another world.
--McPhee

Boy was it nice to be out there for a while. No electricity, no flush toilets, no internet. Just fast cold water, snowy peaks, giant ponderosas, steep grasslands, birds of prey and sand beaches out there. But I'm back in town. I'm sick, too, but on the mend finally today. Somebody brought a cold to share on the trip, and most of us got it. I spent yesterday in bed. I started weeding through the ~350 emails, most of which are irrelevant. I will get back on that project today. In between starting to unpack from the trip, organize in my new home, study for boards, and get well.

It occurs to me, as I weed through my email inbox, that modern attempts to mold public opinion are largely efforts to incite us to outrage. The most recent one to cross my viewscreen was an email claiming that the TSA's purpose is to humiliate people. This claim was based, in this story at least, on the fact that they required that a breast feeding mother pump her milk before boarding the plane. The story made multiple references to her breasts, as if the TSA was actually doing something to them. I sincerely doubt that the TSA thought she had filled her breasts with explosives, but if she somehow had, having the liquid out where it could be inspected would eliminate that question. But more practically speaking, it takes a long time to pump breast milk, and there aren't many toilets on an airplane. It seems logical to me to pump while you're on the ground and avoid spending 10+ minutes in the restroom on an airplane. It's not a safe or pleasant place to hang out anyway. And others might need the restroom. So all this commentary is really just to say that there is more to every story. Before you allow someone to manipulate your emotions toward bloodthirst, look at the other side(s) of the question. Outrage in many cases is simply a lack of understanding. And little as I like the TSA's methods, their goal is not humiliation of the public, it is safe air travel.

The Map is not the Territory.
—Alfred Korzybski