Grumpy Old Man

I listened to a radio talk show yesterday in which the U.S. Ambassador was fielding calls from listeners. One man called in and said how much he admired America and enthused about the benefits we have all received from her (he cited Microsoft as of enormous benefit to humanity, but that faux pas does not invalidate his point). I got to thinking about what we actually have gained from that astonishing nation.

In the fields of science and technology there can be no doubt that the U.S. has led the field, at least in the last century. I well remember a cold winter’s day in late July 1969. I was a nine year old boy and man had just set foot on the moon for the first time. Because television had yet to penetrate our corner of Africa, film of the event was flown out and shown in cinemas. Admission was free and open to all, irrespective of race. The Gala bughouse was full to the rafters and deathly silent as the lunar module made its final approach to the Sea of Tranquillity. Then it touched down and pandemonium broke out at the scratchy words, “the Eagle has landed.” When we emerged into the weak winter sunshine I remember seeing an old black man, tears streaming down his face as he made his way out into the street. I noticed that he was not the only one so affected and, indeed, my nose was snottier than was warranted by the weather. I realised that we had all instinctively known that what we had witnessed was a great triumph of the human spirit and brain, the culmination of a decade of work carried out in the light of cold, hard reason and almost unimaginable courage. That project, paid for by the U.S. Taxpayer, had a profound effect on every member of our species who witnessed it.

I wonder how many people have been cured of debilitating or fatal diseases thanks to research performed in America? The polio vaccine alone must have saved millions, but its discoverer, Jonas Salk, died in modest circumstances. He was never granted the recognition or financial reward given pop or movie stars of very ordinary talent.

But that is our fault, not the fault of the system. We value that which is ephemeral and insubstantial over that which has real and lasting worth. A talentless pop singer who looks like an ineptly embalmed Egyptian mummy dipped in a vat of cake flour attracts screaming hordes; People magazine sells more copies each week than Hemingway and Fitzgerald sold in their lifetimes, but that does not mean that they are less valuable. People magazine will be lining the bottom of tomorrow’s parrot cages, but Hemingway is immortal.

The founding fathers did not invent freedom and democracy, but they refined them and made them the basis for a workable constitution that has been a model for other nations, including our own. The fact that Americans ignore their own constitution in this day and age is irrelevant to its worth and is, I hope, a temporary phenomenon.

My point is that the bad things that emanate from America are trivial and we can safely ignore them. The good things are lasting and have bestowed an immeasurable benefit on mankind as a whole. I think we owe them a debt of gratitude at the very least.

© Mark Widdicombe 2008

Oh, women! Why have you forsaken your femininity?

Wherever I go, I see young women dressed in the most outlandish gear. The current favourite seems to be trousers that come down to about half calf length and are covered in pockets which appear to have been designed for ammunition pouches and possibly one or two howitzer shells. The most common colour is camouflage or jungle green. These trousers are usually matched by a battledress jacket.

A moment or two of thought about this bizarre phenomenon leads me to conclude that these garments are not worn because they are in any way sexy; most men like women to look like women, not like their old army sergeant-major. No, I have concluded that they are worn because other women are wearing them, and the trend is set by some fashion magazine or other. My hypothesis is that women choose clothes to look as much like other women as possible, no matter how ridiculous that look actually is.

Is this a testable hypothesis? I say yes, and here is an experiment to find out whether or not it holds water. (If there are any psychology professors out there with grant money burning a hole in their pockets they can contact me and we can perform this experiment together, provided I get to be lead author on the ground-breaking paper that results. We split the Nobel money down the middle.)

Here is how it goes. We take about a dozen fashion-conscious young women and dump them on a convenient deserted tropical island, like the ones they use in Survivor. Each week, they each receive the latest copy of Cosmo, or whatever the fashion mag du jour happens to be. But these magazines will be subtly doctored, and the clothing portrayed therein will, over the course of the experiment (perhaps 6 months) evolve away from the actual current fashions, until by the end of the experiment they are so outlandish that anyone wearing them in the “normal” world would be laughed out of the mall.

Before they go home, the women would be allowed to order any outfit they want from the magazine, or be allowed to stick with their own clothes that they had before the experiment started. If my hypothesis is true, they will all order clothes out of the magazine, and we will have proved that style and fashion are two completely different things.

© Mark Widdicombe 2008

I am most fortunate to live in an achingly beautiful place. Cerulean sky, aquamarine sea, blinding white beaches and haunting granite cliffs — this is the place sunglasses were invented for. But there are a few downsides. We experience friction with outsiders; inter-species friction, I suppose inevitable when one lives close to nature; and friction caused by variations in the belief systems of the people who live here, magnified because in a small community everyone knows everyone else and it is harder to ignore someone than it would be in a city.

People who live in less achingly beautiful places come here in their droves for their holidays. I don’t begrudge them their pleasure, indeed I feel proud to show off our sights. It’s just that they behave in such a weird way while they are here. They drive at 40 km/h on a 90 km/h road; sometimes they actually stop in the middle of the road to take pictures, which makes it quite hard for us locals to go about our business or timeously attend our love trysts. They also cause enormous queues to form at amenities that we locals take for granted, so we just hunker down at home until the tourist tide has ebbed.

Then there’s the wildlife. One of the reasons I chose to live here was that I love nature and get great pleasure from observing it. There are places within walking distance of my home where it is possible to imagine that I am one of the first humans on the planet and there are no works of man to be seen. In return for this magnificence, we must pay an occasional price.

One dark evening, going out to the car to collect some forgotten paperwork, I was brought up by an agonising pain in my ankle. I staggered to the carport light switch, and as I switched the light on I saw that the cause of my distress was a fat yellow scorpion, a drop of venom glistening on its upturned tail. Fortunately, I was able to identify the creature as of the family Scorpionidae whose sting, while painful, is not harmful to humans.

There is a plentiful supply of snakes; the ones to worry about are the puff adder and the cape cobra. The puff adders here are a gorgeous butter colour, with darker chevrons running across their bodies. They are lazy creatures who will not move out of the way, so there is a danger of stepping on one in the pathway. One has to watch where one puts one’s feet. The cape cobra is shy and will usually slither away before it is even seen.

Our champion antagonist, though, is the rascally Papio ursinus, the Chacma Baboon. They have discovered that they can achieve the same haul of calories in ten minutes of home raiding as in an entire day’s foraging on the hillside. They operate in gangs with a smooth efficiency that would be the envy of the great train robbers. The dominant male will ascend to a rooftop from which he will survey, through surprisingly gentle brown eyes, the surrounding area, noting any open doors or windows. Then he yawns, showing off his scimitar canines, and sends in the troops. Some homes have been ransacked with such thoroughness that even the fridge has pulled over and its contents scattered on the floor. Then they leave, running on their hind legs with their arms full of bread, fruit and eggs. We soon learn to keep our doors and windows closed when the troop is in the village.

I was going to write about the human weirdos in this free-range lunatic asylum, but this post is already too long, so I’ll defer that subject until a later date.

© Mark Widdicombe 2008

Last month, at least 50 people in India lost their vision after staring at the sun where an image of the virgin Mary was alleged to have appeared. They sustained photochemical burns to their retinas, resulting in possibly irreversible damage. Brian Saint-Paul, a catholic blogger, says “Every once in a while, critics who accuse Catholics of ‘ignorant superstition’ may actually have a point.”

Well, Brian, me old china, I’d go further than that. I’d say they had a point every time. In order to believe the things that you believe (I won’t list them here in the interest of brevity) you have to throw rational common sense and all the discoveries of science out of the window. Staring at the Sun is dangerous, and the fact that so many people did it to the point of blinding themselves is merely a manifestation of an irrational faith which is dangerous in numerous other ways as well. But this isn’t an anti-religious rant; my point, as I hope to show, is different.

I have a theory that thinking is the most arduous, most difficult thing human beings do. It is so difficult that there are a multitude of people who would literally die rather than attempt it. If this were not true, then there would be no Popes, no confidence tricksters, no corrupt politicians to send people into battle or part them from their money. People are dying to be told what to do because using their own brains critically is simply too hard.

“Strap these sticks of gelignite under your jacket, then go into that crowded market and press this button. You will in Paradise before the day is through, enjoying your 72 virgins (or raisins, depending on which translation you use).”

“OK. Cool.”

“Go over the top, men, and stick it to the Bosch or die so we can gain another 6 inches of Belgium.”

“OK. Cool.”

But what if they said, “No. My life is worth something. I’m not laying it down for you. I’m going home.” Wouldn’t the world be a happier and better place?

I’m convinced that it would be. But it won’t happen because we won’t think. We are condemning ourselves to extinction as a species because we refuse to use our most important survival tool, our brains. The notion that we must accept the things told to us by those of higher status or in positions of authority has caused such death and misery on this planet that 50 people blinded are not even a blip on the screen. Our destructive capability has reached such an advanced state that the blind obedience of one individual can destroy us all.

There are billions of individuals like that. It’s only a matter of time.

© Mark Widdicombe 2008