A Few Thoughts About Airport Security

My recent travels have had me thinking about all the ways flying has devolved since my first big adventure, when I went to Cambridge, England, way back in 1993. Back then, there was still a tiny little hint of the old-school elegance to the whole thing, but not anymore. Flying these days is about as much fun as a do-it-yourself appendectomy with only a twelve-pack of 3.2% Utah beer to use for both anesthetic and disinfectant.

The airlines are as much to blame as anything for the grueling unpleasantness that is modern air travel, but the negative experience begins well before you ever set foot on a plane. I have certain, shall we say, strongly held opinions about post-9/11 airport security protocols. The short version is, I hate all that TSA nonsense with a white-hot passion.

I despise the inconvenience and the indignity of it, I don’t believe taking off my shoes or trashing my half-full water bottle really makes us safer, and I resent the implication that everyone who wants to travel is guilty until they prove themselves innocent, i.e., demonstrate that they’re not a terrorist. People are always fretting about the sanctity of the First and Second Amendments, but no one ever mentions the Fourth, which among other things guarantees that individual citizens can’t be molested by authority without probable cause. (If you disagree, please don’t start throwing case law at me; I’m not up on all of that, and I’m sure the TSA procedures are fully justified by some SCOTUS decision or other. Doesn’t mean I have to agree with it, even as I’m grudgingly exposing a roomful of people to my foot odor to demonstrate my lack of insane malevolence, or having my frickin’ ponytail frisked because the little bit of metal in the elastic triggered some overly sensitive detection device.)

I think it’s all ridiculous and more than a little cowardly, not at all in keeping with the America I grew up believing in, and I wish we’d all come to our collective senses, screw our courage to the sticking place, and roll back the screening process to pre-2001 levels. Not that I really expect that will ever happen when so many people are convinced that it’s actually accomplishing some good. But hey, I can hope, right? And I can speak out about it.

The problem is, whenever I start talking about this subject, I tend to get a bit worked up and a little wild-eyed, and then I’m all too easily dismissed as just another old man yelling at a cloud. So how about if I present my arguments in the form of a humorous video clip?

That pretty much covers all my thinking on the subject. But if that’s not enough to convince you we’ve meekly submitted to an ineffective and absurd Gilliam-esque bureaucracy, here’s an international (and very NSFW!) perspective offered by the Australian comedian Jim Jefferies:

Incidentally, the UK airports I passed through have similar screening procedures as here, but the British equivalent of the TSA was better organized, more efficient, and — most notably — far more courteous than the American version. While I still thought the situation was absurd, it was a lot easier to stomach when I was being treated with a modicum of respect…

Nov052015

So, About Scotland…

I did say I wanted to have an adventure, didn’t I?

Things went south the moment Anne and I arrived in Newcastle and our luggage… did not. Our trans-Atlantic flight had been late arriving in Amsterdam, where our connection was already tight, resulting in one of those “mad dash across the terminal” scenes that look so exciting in movies but are a total drag in real life. You can guess what happened next: Anne and I made it to the plane; our bags remained behind and probably had a grand old time checking out the red-light district and a couple of those, ahem, “coffee shops” you hear about.

Our itinerary was such that we didn’t have the luxury of hanging out in our arrival city until our bags turned up, so, bagless, without toothbrushes and wearing the same stinking clothes we’d had on for about 24 hours at that point, we picked up our rental car and set off for our next destination. Whereupon we learned that driving in the UK was going to be a much bigger challenge than either of us expected.

It wasn’t the driving-on-the-left thing, like everyone assumes. You actually get used to that pretty quickly. No, the problem was that the roads there are so bloody small. Seriously, a two-lane road with traffic running in both directions, supposedly a “major” roadway, is only about as wide as one-and-a-third of the spacious traffic lanes we enjoy here in the wide-open western US. And there’s no shoulder or breakdown lane over there, either, only occasional wide spots called “lay-bys” where you can pull over if you need to.

And if that wasn’t challenging enough, the roads are bounded in most places by a short curb, unless you’re really far out in the countryside, and it was that curb that gave us the most stress. I was so conscious of keeping to the left, away from the oncoming traffic that seemed to be only inches away from my face, that I kept brushing against the stupid curb. And so it was that late in the afternoon of our first day, as the sky was growing purple with twilight and the only thing we wanted was to reach our B&B and sleep for the next 15 hours or so, I hit one of those stupid curbs while moving about 60 mph and blew a tire.

This meant we were obliged to spend a good part of the next day discovering what an English tire shop is like. (“English” rather than “Scottish” because we hadn’t actually crossed into Scotland yet.) FYI, they’re just like American ones: the smell of new rubber in the air, a waiting area with vinyl couches and free coffee, a flat-screen TV tuned to some kind of sporting event… hell, the manager’s name was even “Dave,” just like every Big-O I’ve ever set foot in here at home. But even after getting the tire — excuse me, tyre — replaced, we were still dead in the water, waiting around in a small Northumberland town for a missing suitcase to catch up to us. And then, just to put a cherry on top of this sundae, Anne came down with a case of traveler’s tummy (i.e., she got sick).

This was definitely not the way I’d hoped to introduce her to the wonders of world travel. In fact, for the first several days we were over there, I think if she could have stepped through a Stargate and been magically, instantly home but only at the price of never leaving again, she would have done it. Things got better, though, once we started up into the Highlands.

The Scottish Highlands have occupied our imaginations for years, thanks to the movies Highlander and Rob Roy, and Diana Gabaldon’s novel Outlander, and I’m very happy to report that neither of us were disappointed by them. The landscape northwest of Glasgow is quite simply majestic: rolling hills and rocky crags, all painted in soft greens and yellows with an overlay of purple heather, dotted with quaint towns and picturesque ruins, and with thick forests and lochs and rivers and waterfalls around every turn. Curiously, parts of the Highlands reminded me of home, of the high valleys in the mountains above Salt Lake City, which, perhaps not coincidentally, were often settled by Scots and feature borrowed Scottish names. (We have our own version of Ben Lomond in Utah, for example.) The rugged beauty and relatively sparse population of the Highlands seemed to draw a lot of the anxiety and stress out of us, like some kind of psychic poultice; I even started to become more comfortable behind the wheel. A little, anyhow.

In the 15 days Anne and I spent in the UK. I drove a little over 1,100 miles, from Newcastle in the north of England to Glasgow, then northwest to the Isle of Skye, then east and north to Inverness and finally back south to Stirling, Falkirk, and Edinburgh. We slept in seven different locations ranging from major cities to somewhere in the boondocks, staying in everything from a working farm’s outbuilding to a Victorian-era home to a former school that’d been converted into a hotel to a honest-to-god castle.

Problems with the luggage and the car aside, Anne and I had some wonderful experiences together. We stood on the shores of Loch Shiel at a place called Glenfinnan, not far from the spot where Bonnie Prince Charlie began his ill-fated revolution against the English in 1745, and there we watched a red-deer stag wade out into the water for a drink. (This was also the place where the immortal Connor MacLeod claimed to have been born in the movie Highlander, in the year 1518.) A few days later, wrapped in a grey drizzle of rain, we walked the battlefield at Culloden Moor, where the English crushed the Highlanders in April 1746 and sent Charlie running for his life. We toured castles and cathedrals and museums and recreated homes of the centuries past. We touched standing stones that had been placed a thousand years before the Romans stepped onto British soil. And we had our hearts broken by the golden light of the setting sun washing over the sandstone buildings of Old Town Edinburgh on our final night in Scotland.

On my own, I climbed a mountain to watch a vintage steam train chuff its way across the arched trestle made famous in the Harry Potter movies. I walked along Hadrian’s Wall to Sycamore Gap, where Kevin Costner first bested Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. In Stirling, I wandered through a medieval graveyard after dark, with my only tether to the present being the sound of a Backstreet Boys song echoing down a cobbled alleyway. At Loch Ness, I gazed out across the dark waters and spotted a long, tubular shape among the whitecaps; it turned out to be a line of fishing-net floats, but for just a second, I believed. In Inverness, I rented a kilt for a half-hour just to see what it was like. (Quite comfortable, actually, and I looked great!)

Yes, I did try haggis. I had it for breakfast, served in a big crumbled heap with a couple fried eggs on top. It reminded me somewhat of corned beef hash, and I quite liked it. Black pudding, on the other hand… well, it wasn’t repulsive, and I finished the portion I was served, but I don’t think it’s anything I need to ever order again.

However, the best thing we experienced over there, as corny as it sounds, was the people. The Scots are wonderful, possibly the most wonderful people I’ve ever encountered in my travels. Not that I expected them to be dicks, of course, but I was surprised to cross paths with so many genuinely kind people, starting with Dave, the tyre-shop manager, who offered to drive us to a grocery store that was all of a two-minute walk away so we could get some lunch while he fixed our car.

There there was the hotel desk clerk in Glasgow, whom I asked to tell the maids not to bother Anne while she was feeling under the weather, and who then inquired about her every time I walked past on my way in and out of the place.

Craig, the owner of the B&B where we stayed on Skye, told us in all seriousness that he didn’t want to be there when we left, because he gets attached to his guests and hates to tell them goodbye.

On a street corner in Edinburgh, a scruffy man in a Hawkwind t-shirt — Hawkwind, of all things! — asked Anne if he could help her figure out which bus she needed. Here in the U.S., my reaction would’ve been a defensive “Mind your own business, pal!”, but there was nothing skeevy or threatening about this guy at all. He just saw someone studying a schedule and wanted to help.

Just below Edinburgh Castle, there was a street performer dressed as William Wallace, blue facepaint and braids and all, who became my new best friend when it somehow came out that I liked the band KISS. Suddenly, playing a 13th century warrior was out the window and he just wanted to talk music.

And there was the waitress in a pub called Greyfriars Bobby, where we dined two nights in a row. On our way out on the second night, she asked when they’d be seeing us again, and when we told her it was our last night in Scotland so we wouldn’t be back, she seemed positively crestfallen. Then she stunned us both by throwing her arms around me for a big hug, and then doing the same to Anne along with a kiss on the cheek, after which she wished us a safe journey home and said she hoped that if we ever make it back, we’ll stop in again. We promised her we would… and we meant it. Because I think we will go back someday. Granted, we haven’t even been home a full two months yet, but I think we both feel a tug on our hearts nearly every day…

To wrap up this very long entry — finally! — I’ll leave you with my favorite photo from the trip, a complete accident that happened when I was trying to take a selfie with a Highland “coo” and got more than I bargained for: a cow tongue up the side of my head immediately after I clicked the shutter!

Nov032015

Review: No Tourists Allowed: Seeking Inner Peace and Sobriety in War-Torn Sudan

No Tourists Allowed: Seeking Inner Peace and Sobriety in War-Torn Sudan by Shannon Egan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Growing up in Utah is hard enough when you’re not a member of the culturally predominant Mormon Church. It becomes an order of magnitude more difficult when you are a member but harbor doubts or long for something other than the officially sanctioned LDS lifestyle. In that respect, Shannon Egan’s story is a familiar one. I’ve known many people who experienced similar struggles to find themselves in the face of parental disapproval and an almost overwhelming institutional pressure to conform. Often, as in Shannon’s case, these struggles lead to self-destructive behavior and problems with drugs and/or alcohol. But what makes Shannon’s story unique is what she did to try and escape both her upbringing and her addiction: she took a teaching job in Sudan, a war-torn country about which she knew virtually nothing. As the situation in Sudan deteriorated, a chance encounter led her to a position as a fledgling journalist, and that, in turn, led her to witnessing the horrors of Darfur and a confrontation with her own demons. Even in a land ruled by strict Islamic law, a determined addict can find what she needs…

Shannon Egan is a fine storyteller who reveals herself with vivid imagery and a sometimes painful degree of honesty. Her account of getting lit up on the Sudanese version of bathtub gin — a noxious homebrewed spirit called aragy — and the events that led to the relapse is one of the most harrowing things I’ve ever read. But there are moments of real beauty in this story, too, as she describes the history, culture, and especially the people of a place few Americans really know anything about. No Tourists Allowed is as much a travelogue and an ethnography as it is a work of memoir, and I found the wide-angle story as fascinating as Shannon’s personal one.

If the book has any flaws, it is in the author’s habit of occasionally slipping into asides filled with the jargon of recovery and advocacy. I understand that’s where Shannon’s mind is these days, as she’s parlayed her own experiences into both a career and a noble cause, but these passages tend to feel like parentheticals that distract from the action of the story she’s telling. The book is powerful enough on its own terms, don’t misunderstand, but I think it could’ve been moreso if she’d stuck to the facts and saved some of the commentary.

Nevertheless, this is an engrossing and fast-moving read that plumbs the worst depths of human behavior to come up with a message of hope and resilience. I understand a sequel is in the works, and I look forward to reading it…

View all my reviews

Oct302015

Friday Evening Videos: “Crazy in the Night” (Fright Flicks Edition)

I’ve posted the official video for “Crazy in the Night” before, but if you’ll forgive a little repetition, I just stumbled across a really terrific variation put together by YouTuber CM Wournell, which lays Kim Carnes’ 1985 hymn to paranoia over imagery from some of the classic horror films of the 1980s. Wournell has an impressive talent for matching the right scene with the right lyric or emotional note, and I really enjoyed the hell out of this.

Hope y’all like it too… Happy Halloween!

(Incidentally, I’m ashamed to confess that I can’t identify all of the movies referenced in the video; if anybody watching this can, I’d love to see a list… )

Oct262015

I Dreamed of Projectors…

I dreamed last night I was back in my old movie-theater projectionist job. One of them, anyhow, but maybe somehow both* of them simultaneously; you know how dreams are. The machines hadn’t been tended in a very long time — of course not, I haven’t worked in a theater in 22 years! — and they were caked with grease and that red powdery stuff you were supposed to wipe out of the film gate after every screening. I can’t remember what that was… some kind of lubricant on the film itself, I think.

In any event, I dreamed I was cleaning projectors and threading film, spinning platters and feeling the deep, white-noise thrumming of the motors in the soles of my feet and the pit of my stomach. I was on a schedule, of course. I had to get the movie started on time. But I was totally relaxed about it, riding the wave and letting muscle memory do all the work. I was in my element. And it felt really good to be back in that time and place. I was happy.

Now, I’m not one to read too much into dreams. I don’t think they have much meaning in and of themselves, and I find lengthy analyses of their symbolism both tedious and silly. (Sorry, I just don’t believe that a talking chicken represents that time I was teased by a girl in third grade, or whatever.) But I can’t deny that dreams definitely produce genuine emotional impact, or that those feelings sometimes linger in various ways long after you wake up. I’ve been thinking about this dream all day, remembering the physical sensations of contentedly working in the dark with obsolete media. And I’ve been wondering what exactly happened to me yesterday that might have shaken loose those old memories…

*I actually worked for two different theaters, under vastly different conditions, back in the day. So for my dream booth to somehow be both booths at the same time was… interesting. But hey. Dreams.

Oct232015

Friday Evening Videos: “Shambala”

This week’s musical selection was inspired by the sad news that Cory Wells, one of the founding members of the classic rock group Three Dog Night, passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday. He was 74.

Three Dog Night came together in 1967 and went on to score an astonishing twenty-one top-40 hits in the US over the next six years, with three of those songs — “Mama Told Me Not to Come,” “Joy to the World,” and “Black and White” — reaching the number-one slot. Interestingly, each of those number-one records featured a different one of the band’s three vocalists on lead: the aforementioned Wells on “Mama,” Danny Hutton on “Black and White,” and Chuck Negron anchoring “Joy.” The band broke up in 1976, but reformed in the early ’80s and has been recording and touring more or less continuously (with some variations in personnel) ever since.

“Shambala,” again featuring the late Mr. Wells on lead vocals, was a number-three hit for Three Dog Night, peaking in the summer of 1973. I was just a wee lad then, which is probably why this song always conjures associations with my very early childhood: the smell of freshly cut alfalfa, the flavor of Fanta Red Creme Soda, and sundogs arcing across the curved windshield of my mom’s ’56 Ford pickup truck. (Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” and “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me” by Mac Davis stir up the same memories, which I suppose tells you a lot about my mom’s musical tastes at the time.) Whether it’s those idyllic, harvest-gold memories or just the upbeat sound of the group’s signature electric organ, this is one of a handful of songs that have an inscrutable ability to always make me feel better, no matter the circumstances.

Music videos weren’t a thing in Three Dog Night’s heyday, of course, but I did locate this, a clip from the band’s 1975 appearance on the PBS program Soundstage. It’s good stuff to head into the weekend with, I think…

Oct212015

The Future Is Now…

Did you feel that? A kind of a tremor, as if some cosmic tumbler clicked into place? Or maybe it was a thunderclap of air being displaced by an object that wasn’t there a moment ago. Whatever it was, it brought with it a definite sense of… arrival. As if the world has finally caught up to something…

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you obviously didn’t spend any time on social media today, because it seemed to be the only thing on everybody’s minds. You see, today — October 21, 2015 — is the future date to which Marty McFly and Doc Brown time-travel from the year 1985 in the Back to the Future movies. The Internet being what it is, this was reason enough for today to become a sort of de facto online holiday. The memes and jokes were inescapable on Facebook, as was the complaining about how our actual 2015 doesn’t much resemble the one depicted in Back to the Future II, which was released in 1989. (I would argue that 2015 actually does have much in common with the fictional one. No, we don’t have hoverboards or flying cars, but our society is consumed with nostalgia, modern cars are pretty funny looking, and we are all eagerly awaiting the next high-numbered sequel in an old film series from the 1970s…)

Naturally, commercial entities were eager to hop onto the event’s coattails. Pepsi rolled out a limited edition “Pepsi Perfect” collector’s bottle like the one seen in BTTF II, complete with a retro-futuristic commercial that’s pretty entertaining. Nike announced it was coming out with self-lacing sneakers like the ones Marty sports in the movie, and made certain that Michael J. Fox got the first pair. (I have to confess, the video of him trying them on made me a little teary-eyed, as his Parkinson’s Disease is obviously advancing; it’s so damn sad what’s happening to him.) Toyota introduced its Mirai automobile, powered by a futuristic hydrogen fuel cell, with a long-form video featuring Fox and his co-star Christopher Lloyd, as well as some familiar-looking locations. Marvel Comics unveiled a cover design for an issue of its Deadpool & Cable title that mimics the familiar Back to the Future poster art. And there was a sweetly sentimental spot with Lloyd delivering a “message from Doc Brown,” which of course ends in a commercial pitch for a new BluRay collection of the trilogy.

Even the White House got into the spirit by declaring today “Back to the Future Day” and hosting a series of discussions on futurism and related topics.

Closer to home, Salt Lake’s arthouse cinema, the Tower Theater, held a marathon screening of the trilogy (complete with a Delorean out front!), and my own corporate overlords ran the movies on the big flatscreens in a couple of our conference rooms. Too bad I had too much work to do.

You know, the funny thing about all this is that I was working at a movie theater when Back to the Future II came out, and I remember it doing fairly well at the box office, but it was hardly a tremendous phenomenon. And even the original film, as big a hit as it was — and it was huge back in the day — never struck me as being, well, that big a deal. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. I had the poster on my bedroom wall, the soundtrack in my Walkman, and a Marty McFly-style denim jacket. And it’s a movie that has remained reliably and pleasantly watchable over the years. But if you’d have told me back in 1985 that three decades hence we would be making such a big fuss about a date we briefly glimpse on an LED readout in an old movie… well, I never imagined there would be a bigger uproar over a reboot of Ghostbusters than friggin’ Star Trek, either, so what do I know?

Some people have been kind of churlish about Back to the Future Day, posting that it wasn’t a very good movie anyway and they’re sick of hearing about hoverboards, etc. etc. I can see that. But personally I found today’s silliness a refreshing break from the usual hostility and political sniping… for one day, we were all posting about something other than gun control, abortion, and Donald Trump.

There’s only one thing that bothers me. Now that this momentous date has finally passed and we are most assuredly living in the unwritten future… what now?

Oct192015

The Final Trailer

If you haven’t seen it already on any of the six million other websites that are linking to it:

Honestly, I’m still not sure what I think, even after watching this three times in a row. The music is nice, if a bit elegiac (we’re going to lose someone we care about in this one, I’ll bet you). JJ Abrams seems to have exercised some self-control with his irritating lens flare schtick, so there’s that at least. It was great to see the old Falcon cutting through hyperspace again. And it’s interesting to hear Han Solo of all people solemnly acknowledging the reality of that hokey ancient religion. But the final line…

“The Force… it’s calling to you… just let it in.”

Is it just me, or does that sound like a meta-message aimed directly at the skeptical fanboys? And if so, is it an invitation spoken from a position of confidence or does it betray some opening-night jitters? Are the filmmakers saying “Come back to the galaxy far, far away, guys, you won’t be sorry,” or are they begging us to remove the chips from our shoulders before we enter the theaters? I guess we’ll find out in a few short weeks…

Oct062015

Another American’s Observations about the UK

A couple people have sent this to me today, so I thought I’d do my part and pass it along in turn: It’s a list of observations about England made by an American named Scott Waters following his fourth trip to that country. He posted the list on his Facebook page just under two weeks ago, and it’s since gone viral; supposedly it’s been shared over 50,000 times.

England is not the same as Scotland, of course — something the Scots are very quick to point out! — but both countries are part of the United Kingdom and have had an intermingled culture for centuries, which means that I noted many of these same points during my recent adventure north of Hadrian’s Wall:

Almost everyone is very polite.
The food is generally outstanding.
[Ed. note: Proper fish and chips!]
There are no guns.
There are too many narrow stairs.
Everything is just a little bit different.
The pubs close too early.
The reason they drive on the left is because all their cars are built backwards.
Pubs are not bars, they are community living rooms.
You’d better like peas, potatoes and sausage.
Refrigerators and washing machines are very small.
Everything is generally older, smaller and shorter.
People don’t seem to be afraid of their neighbors or the government.
Their paper money makes sense, the coins don’t.
[Ed. note: This isn’t entirely true. The coins make sense, it’s just that the 5p coin is the size of an American dime, while the 10p coin is the size of a nickel, so it’s confusing to Americans who are trying to sort change without looking at it…]
Everyone has a washing machine but driers are rare.
[Ed. note: I thought it was rather charming to see actual clotheslines again…]
Hot and cold water faucets. Remember them?
Pants are called “trousers”, underwear are “pants” and sweaters are “jumpers”.
The bathroom light is a string hanging from the ceiling.
“Fanny” is a naughty word, as is “shag”.
All the signs are well designed with beautiful typography and written in full sentences with proper grammar.
There’s no dress code.
Doors close by themselves, but they don’t always open.
They eat with their forks upside down.
[Ed. note: Okay. I didn’t notice this one.]
The English are as crazy about their gardens as Americans are about cars.
They don’t seem to use facecloths or napkins or maybe they’re just less messy than we are.
The wall outlets all have switches, some don’t do anything.
There are hardly any cops or police cars.
5,000 year ago, someone arranged a lot of rocks all over, but no one is sure why.
When you do see police they seem to be in male & female pairs and often smiling.
Black people are just people: they didn’t quite do slavery here.
Everything comes with chips, which are French Fries. You put vinegar on them.
Cookies are “biscuits” and potato chips are “crisps”.
HP sauce is better than catsup.
Obama is considered a hero, Bush is considered an idiot.
After fish and chips, curry is the most popular food.
The water controls in showers need detailed instructions.
They can boil anything.
Folks don’t always lock their bikes.
It’s not unusual to see people dressed different and speaking different languages.
Your electronic devices will work fine with just a plug adapter.
Nearly everyone is better educated than we are.
If someone buys you a drink you must do the same.
There are no guns.
Look right, walk left. Again; look right, walk left. You’re welcome.
Avoid British wine and French beer.
It’s not that hard to eat with the fork in your left hand with a little practice. If you don’t, everyone knows you’re an American.
[Ed. note: Fortunately, I’m left-handed, so I was already doing that anyhow!]
Many of the roads are the size of our sidewalks.
[Ed. note: This is true! And terrifying… ]
There’s no AC.
Instead of turning the heat up, you put on a jumper.
Gas is “petrol”, it costs about $6 a gallon and is sold by the liter.
If you speed on a motorway, you get a ticket. Period. Always.
You don’t have to tip, really!
Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall really are different countries.
Only 14% of Americans have a passport, almost everyone in the UK does.
You pay the price marked on products because the taxes (VAT) are built in.
Walking is the national pastime.
Their TV looks and sounds much better than ours.
They took the street signs down during WWII, but haven’t put them all back up yet.
Everyone enjoys a good joke.
There are no guns.
Dogs are very well behaved and welcome everywhere.
There are no window screens.
You can get on a bus and end up in Paris.
[Ed. note: Well, maybe eventually… it’d be a long ride from the Highlands, though… ]
Everyone knows more about our history than we do.
Radio is still a big deal. The BBC is quite good.
The newspapers can be awful.
Everything costs the same but our money is worth less so you have to add 50% to the price to figure what you’re paying.
Beer comes in large, completely filled, actual pint glasses and the closer the brewery the better the beer.
Butter and eggs aren’t refrigerated.
The beer isn’t warm, each style is served at the proper temperature.
Cider (alcoholic) is quite good.
Excess cider consumption can be very painful.
The universal greeting is “Cheers” (pronounced “cheeahz” unless you are from Cornwall, in which case it’s “chairz”).
The money is easy to understand: 1-2-5-10-20-50 pence, £1-£2 coins and £5-£10, etc bills. There are no quarters.
Their cash makes ours look like Monopoly money.
Cars don’t have bumper stickers.
Many doorknobs, buildings and tools are older than America.
By law, there are no crappy, old cars.
When the sign says something was built in 456, they didn’t lose the “1”.
Cake is pudding, ice cream is pudding, anything served for desert is pudding, even pudding.
BBC 4 is NPR.
Everything closes by 1800 (6pm).
Very few people smoke, those who do often roll their own.
You’re defined by your accent.
No one in Cornwall knows what the hell a Cornish Game Hen is.
[Ed. note: I’ll take Scott’s word for this. It didn’t come up in Scotland.]
Football is a religion, religion is a sport.
Europeans dress better than the British, we dress worse.
The trains work: a three minute delay is regrettable.
Drinks don’t come with ice.
There are far fewer fat English people.
There are a lot of healthy old folks around participating in life instead of hiding at home watching TV.
If you’re over 60, you get free TV and bus and rail passes.
They don’t use Bose anything anywhere.
Displaying your political or religious affiliation is considered very bad taste.
Every pub has a pet drunk.
Their healthcare works, but they still bitch about it.
Cake is one of the major food groups.
Their coffee is mediocre but the tea is wonderful.
There are still no guns.
Towel warmers!
[Ed. note: These are very nice, as are toast racks.]
Cheers!

Oct012015

Another One… and Another and Another and Another…

[Ed. note: I wrote this post a couple months ago following the last mass shooting that made national headlines, but I ultimately chickened out of publishing it, basically because I have friends who own guns and who have a very different perspective on them than I do, and I didn’t want to risk an argument with them. I still don’t want to argue with them, or with anybody else, for that matter. But today’s news of yet another incident, this time on a college campus in Oregon, has stirred up the same sickening mixture of anger, helplessness, and resignation all over again, so this time I am going to publish it. For all the good it will do. I don’t expect to change any minds or actually accomplish anything with my words. And I certainly don’t want to pick a fight! I just have to say something. Because it’s what I do.

One last thing: There’s cussing ahead. Beware if that bothers you.]

Admit it: You can’t even keep them straight anymore, can you? We were just talking about Charleston, weren’t we? Or was it Chattanooga? Oh yes, that’s right… today it’s Lafayette. A movie theater (What, again? We’ve already done that one!) in Lafeyette, Louisiana… three dead, including the shooter, and nine wounded. Not that the details matter much, in the broad sense of our discussion here; it’s the same old story we’ve heard before. It’s so familiar, in fact, that it’s what we old-timers would call a “broken record.” (Ask your parents, kids.) And I don’t know about you, but I’m getting really sick of hearing this particular ditty.

I don’t have any idea why mass shootings seem to be happening so often these days, and I don’t have any practical idea how to stop them, not in light of (a) how many guns are already out there in America, and (b) how many Americans are flatly opposed to even considering doing anything about (a). But goddamn it, how many more times does this need to happen — how many more innocent people have to die in pools of their own blood for no crime other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, just trying to live their lives — before we take a deep breath as a society and say, “Enough“? Before we seriously reconsider this self-destructive love affair with gun ownership and realize that the crazy-hot chick who’s been leading us around by the baby-maker is really just… kinda crazy? Honestly, I thought Sandy Hook would’ve been the breaking point, but if a bunch of little kids getting blown away isn’t sufficient to make people sit up and do something, I don’t know what the hell will be.

I feel queasy writing this and I haven’t even decided yet if I’ll actually post it, because I fear alienating my gun-owning friends who are likely to read it. But goddamn it, I’m through being sad about these events; now I’m angry that this keeps happening, and I’m furious that we, as a nation, won’t seriously talk about what to do about it… yes, I am talking about gun control and making a serious effort to reduce the number of guns on our streets and I’m maybe even talking about amending the Constitution, if that’s what it takes to change this insane mess we’re living with.

I simply cannot imagine that this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind… or that they’d have long tolerated it. So what’s wrong with us that we do put up with it?

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