Happy America Day!

This is probably the weirdest 4th of July in my lifetime, but even so... hard to beat the Muppets.

Here's to everything being better, and more normal, next year. But still with Muppets.

Callahan Crossroads, Anola Pickett, and You

Greetings, Friends of the Blog! Today I bring you a brief conversation with the children's author Anola Pickett, a talented writer who also--in the interest of full disclosure--happens to be my mother.

Her latest book, "Callahan Crossroads," came out earlier this month and it's a bit of a departure from her previous work; it has a male protagonist, it's set in the middle of the country and it takes place during a war. Here's the jacket summary, which pretty much nails it: 

It's the summer of 1918, and all twelve-year-old George Callahan wants to do is hunt for spies with his best friend. But with America at war, the Callahan family is facing new challenges on all fronts. Thoughtfully researched, beautifully written, and filled with historic detail, this heartwarming family drama is an instant classic both children and adults will enjoy.

I of course can't give an unvarnished review "Crossroads" for a variety of reasons, ranging from the fact that I'm [REDACTED] years outside the intended audience to the fact that, again, I am the author's son. But as a Kansas City native, I enjoyed seeing so many familiar streets and places (even ones that really only exist in old pictures now) name-checked. And as a guy who maybe knows more than he should about military history, a snapshot of what it was like at home during World War I was fascinating too--especially as seen through the eyes of a tween.

Overall, there are a lot of topics that you don't often see in a book for this age group. One of the biggest is how we are expected to act on the homefront during wartime, and how that can trample everyday human concerns. Feminism also makes an appearance, in the form of a debate over women's suffrage and Aunt Nora, who plans to join the Marines.

Here's what the author has to say about "Callahan Crossroads." Very minor spoilers within:

Q: Kansas City features almost like a character in the book. Why did you choose it as a setting?

A: Kansas City, of course, is familiar territory because I grew up and have spent most of my life here. It was fun to put George and his family in a neighborhood close to my own childhood home and to include streets and sites that are part of my hometown. For someone researching a book about the "war to end all wars," Kansas City was a logical setting because it's home to the National World War I Memorial and Museum. (www.theworldwar.org) I wanted to honor the spirit of Kansas City. After the war, Kansas Citians raised $2,000,000 to build a memorial “In honor of those who served in the world war in defense of liberty and our country.”

Q: How much of the characters and situations are based on your own family and memories?

A: As I wrote the book, some situations from my childhood flowed into the story. My mother was a seamstress, as was George's. She woke us up by pounding on the ceiling with a broom handle--a highly effective wake-up call! She and I struggled daily over her insistence that I eat what I considered lumpy oatmeal. When I was very small, a man came around every evening to light the gas street light and returned each morning to extinguish it. Milk and bread were delivered via horse-drawn wagons, as was ice in the summer and coal in the winter. Our house was on a terrace, as were the homes of the Callahans and the Kellys. Mrs. Schmitt's gingerbread men came from the memory of a woman who lived next door to my family. My mother often talked about her days in St. Vincent's parish and school. My extended family reflects the disparity of attitudes and action towards war. Like George's brother Charlie, one of my brothers was a conscientious objector and some nephews refused to register. I also have cousins and nephews with military experience and one nephew proudly serves in the U.S. Navy. I'm proud of them all for following their hearts and beliefs.

Q: How do you think attitudes toward war have changed since 1918?
 
A: In 1918 everyone in the country was aware that we were at war. The government established many departments to make sure that everyone was involved. Daily messages and omnipresent posters called the nation to serve--not just in the military--but at home by conserving food and energy, by saving metal and fruit pits (for gas mask filters), by collecting books for the soldiers, by buying Liberty Bonds and War Savings Stamps to financially support the war. Today, it seems to me, only those in military service and their families are directly involved in the war. The citizenry is not asked to sacrifice financially or to conserve resources or collect anything to help in a war. Military action seems removed from the daily lives of Americans.

Q: How unusual was Nora's situation? How many women served in the Marines during World War I?

A: Although a woman named Lucy Brewer served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the War of 1812, she was disguised as a man. The Corps began recruiting women into their ranks in August, 1918. They were assigned to office and communications work here in this country. Opha Johnnson was the first official woman Marine and 304 women had followed her into the Corps by the end of the war. General Jack Pershing (a Missourian) had already recruited young women to serve overseas as telephone operators. He gave priority to those who could speak French. In my book one of Nora's friends had left for Europe to do just that. Other women were "over there" as well: nurses, Red Cross workers, etc. None of them were on the front lines.

Q: You weren't around during World War I, but how were things during World War II in Kansas City? What do you remember? Did you have any German neighbors, and if so, how were they treated?
 
A: World War II brought back many of the efforts from the first war. Citizens were asked to buy bonds and stamps to support the war effort; food was rationed, along with shoes and gas. Schools held paper and metal drives. We collected grease and took it to the butcher. I don't remember any antipathy toward German neighbors, but there were negative feelings about the Japanese. Although there were no Japanese-Americans in my neighborhood, I remember that the owners of a Chinese restaurant were whispered about. I'm sure their business suffered because some local gossips thought they looked "Oriental."

Want to know more about Mom/Anola and her work? Visit her website, anolapickett.com.

Happy birthday, America

It's been 238 years, but you've aged well. And as always, the best way to celebrate is... Muppets.

Happy Independence Day!

Supremely important

Dear readers, you know and I know that online political discussions can get messy. Personal. And of course very stupid*. That's one of the reasons why I try to stay away from anything overtly political in my postings here. You're more likely to find an in-depth discussion of China's military budget than the U.S. "fiscal cliff."

But today I'm going to briefly break my rule. Partly because I think it's an important issue. But mostly because I can't believe it's political at all: gay marriage, or, as I like to call it, equality.

To me, it's difficult to see as an issue, period. Philosophically speaking, there's not much of a cogent argument to be made against consenting adults who love each other being able to make their bond legal and permanent. Nor is there any kind of evidence that gay marriage will cause harm to society, the economy or anything else.

On a more visceral level, I am friends with many people who are gay. It seems unfathomable to support a law or practice that systematically discriminates against them for no discernible reason. I don't understand how anyone in my position could feel otherwise without suffering head-exploding cognitive dissonance.

I am less confident in my understanding of the various elements of constitutional law at play here. But as a rights issue, this--like, say, Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education--should be a no-brainer.

All of which is just a less-dope way of saying:

*for a great example of this, check out the comments posted under the video on YouTube, where the it is hosted.

Britannia rules, colonists drool

Much has been made in the last couple of days about the Falklands' vote to remain part of Britain. The decision was almost unanimous. How almost? There were three people (out of about 1,700 votes cast) who voted to leave British rule. That the Falklanders (Falklandians? Falklandish?) do not want to become part of Argentina--or at least leave the aegis of Britain--is abundantly clear.

Meanwhile, in another former British colony, Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post took a poll about how the Hong Kongers might hypothetically feel about returning to U.K. rule. The result was that nearly three in four respondents wanted to stop being a Special Administrative Region and get back to the good old days of the British Empire.

That would seem to be a pretty solid endorsement. But there are a couple of things that bear noting.

First of all, there are a few nuts and bolts issues. It's an online poll; anyone with an Internet connection can vote. That means there is no way of guaranteeing a good sample... or even guaranteeing that the voters are in Hong Kong. To put it another way, it's not remotely scientific. Maybe if it were, it would still get the same results. But even in that case, there's another problem.

Without additional questions, there is no real way of getting at the motivations for people's votes. In other words, do Hong Kongers yearn to be British pseudo-subjects again, or do they just not want to be part of China? What if another question or voting option were, "Should Hong Kong be an independent country?" What would the responses be?

This is important, because there is a lot of subtext to both the rejection of China and the embrace of Britain. Hong Kongers, in general, harbor a certain amount of annoyance and resentment of China, which many see as kind of an uncultured older brother. Mainlanders are derided for stuff like pooping in public, invading Hong Kong stores in search of baby formula and even swarming Hong Kong hospitals.

As far as ads go, it's not particularly subtle.

Every year since the handover, there are massive street demonstrations on July 1 by Hong Kongers who want to make sure China knows they value political autonomy, freedom of speech, and so on.

Many voices, (basically) one message.

In short, Hong Kongers seem warily OK with being part of China as long as China doesn't get too much up in their business. When it seems like mainland influence is becoming too strong--for instance, when there was a push to get pro-China history courses in Hong Kong schools--people flip out a little bit.

So when given the choice of playing by China's rules or Britain's, it's pretty easy to see how polling results would play out.

And to be perfectly fair here, British rule of Hong Kong went pretty well. I have visited other former imperial colonies that suffered from more oppression and economic manipulation, and are in much worse shape today. And it's not like anyone went around tearing down British statues here after the handover. Hong Kongers, at least the ones I have met, don't have much bad to say about the way things were.

The problem, in the end, is that the poll results represent a false dichotomy. In a whole universe of choices about who is in charge, it's hard to say what Hong Kong might decide it wants.

Britain didn't really have a choice about returning Hong Kong to China in 1997; the airport and most of the water supply were in the part of Hong Kong on which the 99-year lease was running out. (Hong Kong island could have remained Britain's in perpetuity.) Today, Hong Kongers don't really have a choice about whether they can leave Chinese rule.

But if you were to ask me my opinion, my one-man poll would show I think Hong Kong could function pretty well as an independent city-state, except for the small issue of funding a military.

Rockin' around the Clocken

One of the unfortunate things about life in the Middle East was the lack of a genuine local music scene. There were bands everywhere--including some truly killer cover bands--and big shows came through every couple of months, but there wasn't a lot of local musical innovation.

So it was with great pleasure that Mrs. Blog, the Sister-in-Law of the Blog and some Friends of the Blog came face to face with Chochukmo, a local band from Hong Kong. We were spending our Saturday night at an annual music festival with the unfortunate name of Clockenflap.

Note the classic "singing into the audio monitor" pose.

They put on a great show, with a lead singer whose body language could accurately be described as Jaggeresque and a broad-spectrum sound that the kids these days apparently call "math rock."

And the setting was terrific, too. It was cool and a little rainy, but the West Kowloon Cultural District is right on Victoria Harbor, meaning every performance had a spectacular, multicolored backdrop (or sidedrop, whatever).

Note the two giant Christmas trees.

Sure, the crowd made me feel slightly old at times (Hey! You kids! Quit with yer crowd-surfin', I can't see!), but it's hard to beat live, outdoor music on a Saturday night. And it's always good to hear a new band, even if I'm not totally sure how to pronounce its name.

Offensively Sweaty Gweilo IV: Packin' Heat

Greetings, dear readers. It's time once again for another installment in the occasional series of answers to your burning questions for Hong Kong's most overheated resident.

It's after Thanksgiving, kids, and you know what that means: Holiday lights are up, and the temperatures are down. I wasn't quite sure what to expect on either front--Mrs. Blog and I got here in late January, so the arrival of winter is a new thing for us. But I can safely say that things are definitely gettin' festive up in here, and in a development that seemed unimaginable in August, I am now wearing a coat to work. It is waterproof.

Q: Dear Offensively Sweaty Gweilo,
I see that you're now wearing a waterproof coat to work. Way to stay behind the curve! I have been wearing a fleece for several weeks now. You probably already have hypothermia.

A: Yep, I noticed that. But to be fair, you also carry an umbrella on sunny days. The thing is, though, it's still not cold--not really. Not like it was in Chicago. I could easily walk to work in shirtsleeves and not be particularly uncomfortable (assuming it's not raining. I'll get to that in a sec.). At night it has gotten just chilly enough, like in the 50s, to warrant a jacket. Plus, this particular jacket, which Mrs. Blog bought me in Beirut, is awesome, and I'm not ashamed to admit I'm glad I have an excuse to wear it.

Q: But OSG,
 it's raining so much! Aren't you afraid you'll ruin your coat? It is awesome, as you pointed out.

A: Aha! But my coat is waterproof. This also means I am somewhat protected if I'm caught without an umbrella... and that means I can leave my umbrella at home more often. Everyone wins, especially the people I accidentally poke with it on the subway.

Q: OSG,
In your home country, does it get gray and rainy just as you're putting up holiday lights?

A: Depends on where you are, really. In Chicago, my most recent city of residence in the United States of Awesome, it tended to be a little cloudier during the winter. But mostly it just got cold. The cold of deep space. The cold of a Antarctic grave. The cold of a political strtegist's heart. Often, the sun would be shining on what appeared to be a beautiful day, but when you went outside, your tears would freeze. Anyway, the point is, is that there were lots of beautiful decorations, but it would often be more comfortable to view them from inside.

Q: Hey, OSG,
What are you doing to get into the holiday spirit? Besides listening to all the Christmas music playing in our grocery stores over... and over... and over.

A: Well, we're getting a tree! That's a big step--it's our first actual Christmas tree since we moved overseas. So exciting that I'm not even really concerned about cleaning up all the pine needles afterward. We're also enjoying all the holiday lights that have sprung up in the last month or so. My office building, the festively named K. Wah Centre, is festooned with an almost-complete holiday message in 20-foot-tall letters made of colored lights. It currently reads "Erry XM," but I'm sure they'll get it finished by the time XM rolls around.

In the meantime, Hong Kong, a city with an impressive skyline already, is becoming full of displays like this:

Megawatts' worth of peace on earth.

And our apartment is getting full of visitors. That's the kind of thing that warms a heart, no matter how kind-of cold and perpetually rainy things get outside.

That wasn't so bad

The 2012 U.S. presidential election is FINALLY over, and Barack Obama won in a relative snoozefest. No big surprises, unless you count the repudiation of all the anti-intellectual (and, really, counterfactual) backlash that sprung up against election data analysts like Nate Silver.

And then there's Florida. Oh, Florida, how you yearn to be at the center of electoral controversy. In my very first wet-behind-the-ears job out of college, I was an editor at the St. Petersburg Times. The year was 2000. The election was... complicated. Let's just say spending months trying to reframe the issue of "no one has any idea what is going on in Florida" in a story every day was taxing.

This year, of course, the sun is about to come up in Miami the day after the election and no one has figured which candidate carried the state. That came after days' worth of complaints about inaccessible polling sites and ridiculous lines for early voting. That's right, even when the election's outcome is not in doubt, Florida insists on being in the spotlight. What, LeBron James and Disney World aren't enough attention? Sheesh.

But like I said, aside from that this seemed to be a relatively painless deal. The same cannot be said, however, for what remains the best way of interpreting modern politics: the violent video game.




Let's do it again in 2016!

In space, no one can hear you hum

Voyager 1 is on the doorstep of interstellar space; as of a few weeks ago, it probably became the first man-made object to leave the solar system. Besides instruments and a big antenna, it also carries a bunch of stuff meant to help whoever finds it understand the people who built it. In other words, humanity.

Of course, that's a tall order, summing up several billion people. But we gave it a good shot. There's a kind of dust jacket describing humanity:

Not out of place on a Pink Floyd album.

... and a gold-plated record inside that included sounds, messages and data from all corners of the world:

The hottest record in the galaxy.

The music on the disc--images were also encoded--is what I find most interesting about all the inclusions. In terms of music, it featured recordings of many genres and nationalities from throughout history (listen here). But even that turned out to be just a snapshot, not a sampling. Hip-hop, a form of music popular around the globe in 2012, barely existed in 1977, when Voyager 1 was launched (and almost certainly did not exist in the record collections of the probe's creators). Same with modern electronic music, and I'm sure many others that people more plugged in than I could tell you about.

In the end, it's all fairly academic. Even if some alien race were to come across Voyager 1 tomorrow, the civilization they would find on Earth would, culturally speaking, be in a much different place than what the record depicts. Some things about humanity are universal--basic shape, expressions, nourishment. Some aspects of culture will endure; Mozart's work, the pop music of his generation, is still moving audiences hundreds of years later. And of course, the odds that an extraterrestrial civilization not only notices Voyager but traces its footsteps are infinitesimal to begin with.

But if they do, I guess there are a lot worse problems than the aliens thinking Chuck Berry is our president.

Boy, are my arms tired

Also my knees, back, neck and eyes. Mrs. Blog and I just returned from our annual sojourn to the United States of Awesome and, really, there is much to write about. We saw dear friends, celebrated family occasions and bought fine items in America that were, ironically, made not far from Hong Kong.

Those things were excellent and deserve not just more ink, but photos. I'll see if I can get on that.

The trip also involved a lot of time in airplanes. And that was not excellent. Twice during our three weeks I got bruises around my knees from the lack of legroom. Once we were stuck in the middle of a row of five seats for 10 hours because a certain airline's Web site failed when we booked tickets--I won't name names, but it starts with an "a" and ends with a "merican."

Our one-hour flight from Chicago to Kansas City was delayed by more than three hours. Our slightly longer flight from Kansas City to Denver was delayed by an hour because of a mechanical breakdown, and United happily gave away our seats on our connecting flight, even though we arrived at the gate 10 minutes before it was scheduled to leave. At no point were Mrs. Blog and I treated as anything more than potential butts in seats.

And so on. As a famous aviator once said, the list is long and distinguished.

This is disappointing to me for many reasons. It obviously saps a little of the fun out of a vacation when you know you're going to be subjected to that kind of treatment every week or so. Then there is the actual physical discomfort, which, although it's not waterboarding, can definitely seem torturous if you've been awake and traveling for 20 hours, yet can't sleep because someone decided to sew a sharp metal bar into the seat pocket in front of you.

But for me, the worst part is it dims my love of air travel. I am an airplane dork, as you know, gentle and clever Readers of The Blog. I always want a window seat so I can watch the big metal bird fly. I enjoy listening to the air-ground radio chatter when it is available as an audio channel on the plane. I love flying. But these days, it's getting harder and harder to love.

Maybe the Boeing 787, billed as the "Dreamliner" and allegedly built with both seating capacity AND passenger comfort in mind, will turn things around. The cynic in me is doubtful, but hey, the 777 is the best long-haul ride I have experienced, so who knows. Or maybe airlines could charge more per seat while putting fewer seats in their planes, allowing market inelasticity--thanks, lack of U.S. high-speed transit options!--to maintain their profit margins.

In the end, though, the biggest difference-maker might be customer service.

I'm not asking anyone to pin pilot's wings on me and show me around the cockpit. But acting like air travel was special, let alone providing cheerful flight attendants and good food, would go a long way toward helping me once again enjoy not just the destination, but the journey.

Ask an offensively sweaty gweilo anything

As summer approaches on the little subtropical island upon which I now live, temperatures are rising. They are not now, nor will they ever get to be what I call “Abu Dhabi hot,” which is in the range of 115 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. But Hong Kong is subtropical—that’s why there is so much lush vegetation everywhere—and that means enough humidity to make a guy like me perspire in the act of tying my shoe.

And because I am generally much bigger than the locals, that means I am a large pillar of sweat walking among them, riding the MTR with them and crowding onto a ding-ding with them. Contact is assured, and assuredly unpleasant for them. I’m sure they were wondering what the deal was (Did he just run a marathon? Does he have a high fever?), and that has led me to write this, the first of an occasional series in which I, the offensively sweaty gweilo, answer these types of questions, asked and unasked. So without further ado, let me mop my brow and begin.

Q: Dear Offensively Sweaty Gweilo,

Why are you sweating all over this ding-ding? There is a pleasant breeze, you’re wearing short sleeves and sitting still. Help me understand this.

A: Ah, you probably saw me on Thursday. You see, Mrs. Blog and I (who is a gweilo, but most certainly not an offensive one in any way) were doing some painting. And as the bedroom neared completion, we realized that we needed one more liter of this very specific Sudan Sand color. So, long story short, I walked all over our neighborhood, then the next neighborhood over, and finally two MTR stops away to get the right stuff. And, well, motion generates heat. It’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. Sorry if I slimed you.

Q: Dear OSG,

I, a native Hong Konger, walk everywhere. There is great public transportation and the city is full of places to go. Yet I manage not to collapse into a puddle of saltwater. What’s the deal?

A: Well, I have a theory. You know how you will sometimes frustrate me by meandering along the sidewalk when I am in a hurry to get somewhere? I think you’re walking more slowly, consciously or not, to save energy and thus get less hot. I, on the other hand, bounce along on my freakishly long legs and get my metabolism all worked up. So maybe if I worked a little harder at going native, I could work a little less hard at not dripping sweat.

Q: Hey, OSG,

When I get hot, I just take off my shirt. You have probably seen me in the market, on the street, riding a motorcycle and in the mall. It’s a good solution.

A: And a fine solution it is. I have no problem doing this when I am, say, working around the house or playing basketball. But there’s something a little odd about being in a shopping mall without your shirt that I can’t get past—sorry. (Although I did once go to a New Zealand grocery store barefoot.)

Q: Dear OSG,

Since you are so comically oversized, do you ever have problems with the dimensions of everyday life here?

A: Hey, thanks for the non-sweat-related question. And the answer is yes. The ding-ding, for instance, has a ceiling that is probably about six feet tall. Maybe a little less. Which means if I’m not sitting on one of the benches, my neck is bowed down like a sad giraffe. The MTR is fine, except for the doorways—I have to duck about an inch. I was in a bank the other day in which all the employee-only doors looked to me like secret passages, with a height of no more than 5-foot-10. Having said all that, this is a city filled with people of all shapes and sizes, so it’s not usually a huge inconvenience. Except shoes. I haven’t laid eyes on a pair of size 15s since I left the U.S.

And that’s it for this installment! Thanks for writing in, and as always, the Offensively Sweaty Gweilo will be happy to answer all your burning questions… just as soon as he has a nice, cold glass of water.

The story of my life

It's official. The Internet is now everywhere. On my desktop, my laptop, my phone and even, as it turns out, my childhood.

For the first time in history, every home I have ever lived in is now visible on Google Street View... with the exception of the Budget Building, whose Abu Dhabi locale a) doesn't have a searchable address and b) Google probably doesn't want to bother with anyway.

And I actually had a lengthy post planned out, as you can embed a pannable, zoomable Street View frame in the blog. Wouldn't it be neat to show people all these places, I thought to myself?

Yes, Smarter Self replied, but it would be a lot less neat for anyone with a keyboard to be able to see your entire residence history, steal your identity and use it to start an online brothel in Bangkok.

So never mind.

Suffice to say it was a roller-coaster journey from Midtown Kansas City to almost Abu Dhabi. As I said, Google, like good customer service and excellent club sandwiches, has not yet arrived in the UAE. Perhaps someday it will, and when you type "Muroor Road, after Delma Bridge, opposite Al Wadi Furniture... no, farther down. Yes, stop by grocery" it will pop right up on Street View.

For now, though, I think I'll just enjoy entertaining applications of technology and basking in the fact that I have lived in a lot of great places.

Happy America's Birthday Day

It's that time of year again. Two hundred and something something years ago, the United States went from being a backwater colony to a backwater nation.

Since then, many great innovations have been innovated and progresses have been progressed. Electricity. The cotton gin. Jazz. The airplane. Space pens.

And, of course... the Muppets.

Happy Fourth of July. (and yes, I think this is going to be a tradition.)

Getting culture at the mall

On National Day, I gently complained that the UAE wasn't doing enough to make its culture accessible--at least in the form of tourist trinketry--to visitors and non-native residents.

Yesterday, I got my first bit of exposure to actual Bedouin tradition. Of course, it was in the mall.

A group of Emirati drummers had formed a drum line and were parading around the mall's central fountain. They were chanting rhythmically in Arabic. They were bobbing to the music. They were prepared to twirl canes and swords and axes, at least based on the objects stacked nearby.

It looked like this, but with fewer fake guns:



And that's really all I want. A little flash. A little dance. A little culture. I don't even care if it's at the mall--at least we could sip Barista coffee as we watched.