CALL ME SNAKE

From what I know (which is essentially nothing), Netflix is a well-run company: You order the movies online and they arrive in the mail precisely on schedule. Yet I think Netflix is emblematic of a worrisome trend in this great land--people doing their shopping by computer (amazon.com being another example), without getting out to see and interact with other people. Eventually, this has to take a toll on our society, to the extent there is any society left.

That said, I must make a painful confession: I subscribe to NetFlix, despite the fact that I think it's part (admittedly a small part) of what's wrong with America. How did this come about? I got sucked in with a free one-month offer. By the end of the first month, I hadn't had time to watch the free movies, so I ended up paying for one month. By the time that month had elapsed, I still hadn't finished watching the movies. So it continues. But this month I vow to turn the movies in before the due date, whether I watch them or not, so that I can do my part in saving America, assuming it's not too late. If it is too late, I apologize for my role in contributing to this sad decline.

I'm back from Caribou, Maine--the land of foxes and moose and flying squirrels. I learned a lot about the area from my taxi driver, Bryan, who talked about hunting (he hates "trophy hunters"), feeding the poor with road kill, and other issues I rarely consider from my urban perspective. According to Bryan, people from the city often have a hard time dealing with the sprawling vistas to be had in Caribou, which is unusual in its sense of openness for the East. Caribou is about as far north as you can get in the Northeast, close to the 47th parallel (i.e., Duluth, Minnesota) though Bryan suggested it had the same latitude as Fairbanks, Alaska, which was true give or take a few thousand miles.

My other "tour guide," so to speak, was Mark, a weatherman who advised me of a safe "moose speed limit"--40 mph or less during the evening. Mark has a fondness for small rodents, especially the northern flying squirrels that inhabit the spruce forest surrounding his home. I had the chance to watch a number of these friendly furry critters sail through the air. They don't fly--no flapping of wings, no thrust generated, and so forth--but they surely glide, deftly navigating through trees and brush. Steering is accomplished by moving their tail and legs. Their preferred mode of transport is pretty simple: Starting from a lofty perch on one tree, they glide slightly "downhill" to another tree, quickly scramble up, and then glide to another tree; they rest in hidden nooks that offer protection from owls and other predators. I watched the squirrels for hours with Mark and his wife, as we downed beers and swatted mosquitoes--a pleasant way to spend an evening, even with the mosquitoes.

In an effort to rally support for a counterinsurgency struggle in Iraq that is going from bad to worse, our Fearless Leader admonished the crowd yesterday not to "forget the lessons of 9/11." I'm just curious, which lessons of 9/11 was he referring to: An administration that repeatedly failed to heed reports of an imminent attack by Al Quaeda? A Commander-in-Chief who, after being informed of the attack, chose to continue a reading session with gradeschoolers in Florida? A President who went into hiding immediately after the attack and did not show up in New York City until several days had elapsed? For me, these are the lessons that immediately spring to mind. I'm just wondering what "W" was thinking about, or perhaps that's the wrong verb...

You turn off your computer for a few days and head off to the North Woods, and you never know what will turn up when get back. Somehow during my absence, a University of Chicago graduate student got hold of this blog and included me as part of his survey of bloggers, which seems to go after the question that philosophers have been debating since the Stone Ages: Why do people blog? Is it for fame, spiritual fulfillment, the endorsement dollars, or the thrill of seeing your name in print, even if it isn't your real name, just a bogus "handle" picked at random for no good reason?

Well, since this was for a good cause--an advanced degree--I answered truthfully and put it all out there, so to speak. The exercise of trying to explain in 20 different ways just why it is I blog, has got me wondering: Just why do I blog? How much longer will this bad habit persist? And will I ever succeed in shaking it? For answers to those and other (equally trenchant) questions, we'll have to wait for Adam from the University of Chicago to finish his dissertation. Which means the rest of you laggards need to fill out your surveys.

If all is quiet on the Snake front, it's fer a good reason: I'm goin' squirrel huntin' in the wild woods of Northern Maine--a place that ain't seen the likes of computers, let alone the internet. I'm not actually squirrel huntin' but more like lookin'. I'll be watching northern flying squirrels glide through the air with a weatherman from up there, or thereabouts, who's a flying squirrel fanatic in his spare time--that is when he's not tracking hailstorms, blizzards, and Arctic depressions. (As for the latter, I think I have me one of those.) As for why I'm going squirrel huntin'--or lookin', if you want to be a stickler--that's all stuff we can go into at some point in the future when we know each other better. I don't feel like talkin' 'bout that now, nor do I want to say how many siblings I have or discuss past relationships--healthy, co-dependent, and deviant. I'm just not ready to "go there", and frankly I'm not sure you are neither. So y'all have a good time over the next few days and when I get back, we'll have ourselves a little sit-down and look at my slides, which promise to be spectacular.

Over 'n out -- Snake.

It is, perhaps, the most commonly used word that is not a word. I'm talking about "nother" or perhaps "nuther" (I'm not sure of the exact spelling since it's not in any dictionary yet, though it will, I'm sure, be in all of them soon after this post), as in "I want a whole nother one" (as in ice cream cone, candy bar, etc.). I can't tell you how many times a day I hear people say that--especially people of the youngish vintage--so it's clear, to me at least, that the time has come for a whole nother word. And if I have any say on the matter, you'll soon be able to look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls--at which point we'll clarify that little spelling matter I mentioned earlier, as well as usage issues and the like.

Our so-called governor, who has spent his entire term in office campaigning for the presidency, finally came out of the closet, so to speak, and admitted that he is testing the waters for a 2008 presidential bid. But even when Mitt (Mr. Romney to you) admitted the obvious, he still did not say it flat out, in plain English. No, he had to continue his annoying, cutesy evasions by saying, "If someone said, well the governor's testing national waters, that's a fair characterization."

So now we have it: It would be a "fair characterization" to say that "Mister Mittster" (see June 4, 2005 post of the same name) is "testing national waters." (What by the way are "national waters"? Does Poland Springs qualify, or is it too parochial?) People in the state of Massachusetts, who've seen little of Romney, are not at all surprised by this half-baked admission. He's spent most of his time as governor vying for the spotlight in 49 other states--that is when he's not getting his hair done or otherwise preening. His main job, so far as I can tell, has been to travel as far from the Commonwealth as possible, advocating for the opposite of what his constituency favors. In that regard, he's similar to Bush whose extreme views (if indeed he actually has views) are far out of step with the American public. So while I'm inclined to write off Mitt's chances, W. has shown that anything is possible in this great nation and, if you believe, and I mean truly believe, your worst nightmares may come true.

Much was written in the 1990s--and I personally shoulder part of the blame--about the four million miles of public roads that cover our nation with asphalt. What a terrible thing, we all said. All those roads. All those damned roads...

But when I see TV ads today (not that I watch TV, and especially not the ads), it's hard to find a car that actually follows a road. Instead, they're all driving up mountainsides, or smashing their way through jungles, or splashing across wetlands, in a full-frontal, all-out assault on the environment. I used to think all those roads were a tragedy--cursing those poor chaps in the blacktop industry--but now I wish at least a few cars would stick to the pavement.

Next weekend, a friend of mine is getting married. Maybe I should call him an acquaintance, as we're not close enough friends that I'm invited--or had any expectation of being invited--to this event. But it will be an event, nevertheless, as this guy has been a bachelor for 50 years and he's made the most of that half century, if you know what I mean. I've often seen him in the company of women, but never with the same woman twice. Years ago, my wife used to work in a bar/restaurant, which had been a favorite hangout of this fellow, who was then a journalist and is now a celebrated author. In fact, she saw him on two different dates, with two different women, on the SAME night. He started hanging out in the next restaurant my wife worked at (though this was before we were married), and he started dating several of the waitresses there (though not her, so far as I know).

Now it seems he's going to settle down and see what married life is all about. I'm not sure how easy or hard the adjustment will be for him. But I can say this: This guy shouldn't be thinking of all those missed opportunities that occasionally haunt other married men, because he didn't miss any.

Don't get me wrong. The history of lynchings in the United States--nearly 5,000 occurring between 1882 and 1968--is a disgrace, and the Senate's efforts to prevent passage of anti-lynching laws were unconscionable. But it troubles me that in this day and age we consider public apologies an appropriate solution to horrific practices like slavery or lynchings. I'm not sure what to propose instead, but the "sorries" ring hollow to me. There's got to be more. If the Senate is determined to apologize for its criminal failings, fine. Just attach that apology to a resolution or bill that actually accomplishes something positive, redressing some of the injustices that have been inflicted over the years. That, at least, is one man's opinion. Sorry if I couldn't be more specific. For that you have my most sincere apology.