Natural Courtesy
The world is sadly lacking in this vital commodity. It is, paradoxically, considering the name I’ve given it, not naturally occurring at all. Natural courtesy is that unfailing and unasked mannerliness that characterises gentlefolk of both sexes. It is not the exclusive property of any particular class though it is easier for the mantle of natural courtesy to be acquired by someone in good circumstances, materially affluent and well-educated, and, hence, it probably ought to more expected and less valued in those from that group. When it is found, as it quite often is, in those of less affluent background, it is remarkable because I think that natural courtesy, which is the right human way to be, is something that is unnatural to us as animals. That person who exhibits, or more, practices natural courtesy in their dealings with the world, is that much more developed as a human being. This is the person who better understands and protects the present and future of the human race. She manages inclinations that are inherent, selfish and short-sighted. Her natural courtesy, on the other hand, enhances civilisation and will help preserve the human race, giving us a future worth striving for.
It seems, though, that every day we move farther and farther away from the ideals of natural courtesy towards a materialistic ethic characterised by behaviour directed to satisfying selfish and immature ‘needs’; in other words, we keep sliding back down the evolutionary ladder. Americans particularly seem to be inclined this way but they are by no means the only members of the club. Newly wealthy Asian societies are producing some of the more outrageous examples of this ethic and representatives of it are found in every single country; interestingly, it seems to occur more in places where the rule of law is weaker and where wealth in newer. The connection between the place that rule-of-law occupies in a society and the presence or absence of natural courtesy is pretty direct in my view. And, of course, rule-of-law requires fierce defence not just against its possible subversion by bribery or the like, but against a different type of abuse, the use of it as a form of lottery, as a get-rich quick scheme which is a practice that is increasingly common in the U.S.A. The law is a place where we ought to seek redress and a forum where behaviour can be called into question. It exists as a backdrop against which our daily activity takes place and it provides context. Whatever you do, if you violate the precepts we as a society have agreed ought to govern our behaviour towards each other in our daily transactions, you are subject to redress under law. We must, in other words, have the right to seek redress – the possibility of an action against someone for a faulty product or a misrepresented service has to be there but this must be a right that is exercised and applied in a balanced and mature manner. I’m not sure how we can define it yet but, like the duck, I think I can recognise it’s abuse when I see it.
What is odd about all this is how the materialist ethic actually militates against happiness. I subscribe to the Aristotelian notion of what happiness is. Very briefly, I believe that happiness is a personal freedom from fears, which creates the freedom for us to focus on personal growth and realisation. The fears from which we seek to be free are the fear of want and fears for our safety and the safety of our loved ones. The best way to secure that freedom from these fears is fairly straightforward, it is achieved socially. That society which works to eliminate the fear of want amongst its members creates a society in which the fears for personal safety are less. The reason is that if your neighbour is free from the fear of want, he is less likely to want to take from you. He is more likely to focus on making sure that he and his family are safe once he is free from want. To ensure that he stays free from fear, he ought, as a matter of course, to work to ensure that his neighbours are as free from the fear of want as he is, otherwise they will threaten his and his families security. To be most happy and most free to pursue my own selfish objectives (which, of course, cannot threaten or take away from my neighbours), those around me must be as free of these fears as I am (or as near as possible).
That society in which I can be happiest – ie, free of my fears and most able to pursue personal growth and realisation – is one in which the rule-of-law prevails. The best possibility of happiness for me is if I can depend on an impersonal and just rule-of-law to guarantee my freedoms. Deep down, I’m pretty close to convinced that fundamentally this is all we need: everything else is simply frosting, the cake is baked. If I get the condo on the beach or the Mercedes, that’s fine as long as acquisition of those things is done within the rule-of-law and (get ready to think about this one!) doesn’t threaten my family or me; in other words, there must be a balance between my material well-being and my freedom. Seems illogical at first glance but I think the reason behind it is both compelling and ineluctable.
28 February 2004
21 February 2004
Mickey
I’ve written a number of stories that have been lost. Many were brief but based on truth, compounds of things I’ve lived or seen. I remember bits of one that was set in the Philippines; it was about Mickey, a professional diver. Mickey had come to the Philippines courtesy of the U.S. Navy who had also trained him to be a diver. He was in and out of Subic over several re-enlistments where he spent long, beer-fed evenings, leaning on the greasy counter of an Olongopo girlie bar, a world away from his North Carolina white-trash roots: a fatherless family made up of numerous, quarrelling siblings and an indifferent mother.
It was inevitable that Mickey would fall for one of the girls that drank and loved the sailors in that string of bars facing the main entrance to the base; whether the cause was lust, love or loneliness or a combination of all three didn’t much matter in the grand scheme of things, one of girls was going to provide what Mickey needed.
Rose was the name of the one that Mickey ultimately learned to love. She came from the south side of Manila Bay, Batangas province. Like most poor Filipino families, Rose’s was large. She was the sixth child. Her father was a contract worker at Shell’s Tabangao Refinery. The work was good but only occasional. When he didn’t work he would drink and gamble with his friends. When he didn’t gamble, he would come home and make more babies with Rose’s amiable, fat mother.
Rose grew up in a concrete-block house on a dirt road that ended amongst some palms and a bit of sand and rock along the sea. The air was clean and there was just enough food. She learned to read a bit and to add and subtract. Her uncle ran a small store selling soda and cigarettes. At 16 Rose worked for him but when he began to touch her and pester her for sex, she left by bus for Olongopo where her cousin made good money working in a contract laundry for the U.S. Navy.
Only Rose’s cousin didn’t work for a contract laundry. She was a bar girl at the Power House.
Before long Rose’s scruples gave way before her greed and the 16 year-old was pounding beers with the sailors, fending off their groping hands and, occasionally, sleeping with one.
Rose wasn’t the prettiest girl at the Power House, she bordered on plain and she was skinny but Rose had a quality that drew Mickey to her, she was what the Indian matrimonials advertise as ‘homely’ and it was her domesticity that ultimately captivated Mickey. Rose filled a hole in Mickey’s life, an unarticulated need for family.
The two of them moved in together off base where they rented a two room flat above a shop during Mickey’s last tour. When his enlistment was up, they married and moved to another small but much quieter place overlooking clear seas at the end of a track near a Batangas beach. Mickey opened a dive shop with his savings and gave Scuba lessons to a few backpacking tourists and some wealthy locals. He was popular and laid back. Far from the most ambitious man in the world, Mickey seemed content to earn enough to pay the rent on the cement shack that served as shop and home to Rose and him. Children soon came, one after the other. The children lit up the faces of both parents, Mickey would spend long afternoon playing in the surf with them and evenings they would curl up around him and Rose as they watched their snowy, black and white TV, a wedding gift from Rose’s groping uncle. No longer objectionable, the uncle now behaved most respectfully towards his niece, partly, I’m sure, out of fear of Mickey’s brawny arms.
It was a good life for Mickey. I met him one day when, on a trip to the Shell offices at Tabangao, I stopped for lunch at a beach-side restaurant where Mickey was sharing a soda with several locals. We had little in common besides being American and each having once lived for a time in North Carolina. Still, it was enough for a conversation.
Over the years I lived in the Philippines I would see Mickey from time to time when I travelled into the provinces. Although he lived no more than a hundred miles from the capital, in all the time I knew him, I never heard of him coming to Manila. He changed very little, his face became more leathery and creased from the sun and the salt water. He had a smile that was individualised by cracked and worn teeth, some broken in fights at Olongopo and elsewhere during his Navy career, and he developed a beer gut that, strangely, seemed to suit him and secretly please Rose who was one of those cooks who fry everything. I can still close my eyes and smell her kitchen and the fresh fish that she prepared the few times that I ate with her and Mickey. Each time I would bring some toys for the kids – I think there were about 7 at the last count – some fabric for Rose to make up into clothes for the kids and a few beers for Mickey. We wouldn’t talk much, we’d sit outside on a couple of ratty old folding chairs and stare at the water, sucking a couple of beers. When the food was ready, we’d eat in the darkness of their unlit living room. Afterwards we’d drink coffee brewed from strong, Filipino beans.
As the heat of the afternoon crept even into the shade where we would sit, I’d make my excuses and drive back to Manila, the air-conditioning on full, insulating me from the land through which I drove and in which Mickey had chosen to live and, one day, die. You see, although the tale is one of languid happiness, ultimately it was a tragedy because one day Mickey disappeared into a South China Sea squall that had blown up quickly during the course of an afternoon. Some outrigger fishermen were caught by the storm a few miles offshore; they were visible between sheeting bands of heavy, almost horizontal rain. Their distress was obvious and their peril real. Mickey and two neighbours, all three combining fearlessness and foolishness in equal measure, went out in a small motorboat to bring them in. When the storm had blown itself out, the scattered outriggers were all found swept ashore on scattered beaches down the Batangas coast but the boat in which Mickey and two others had gone out to save the fishermen had disappeared.
It’s been 15 years since last I lived in those green islands. There was no way to keep direct contact with Mickey’s family and I lost touch even with those who might have known what happened to them. In a way that’s okay because I’ve kept Mickey alive in my world; I have put him back on that dusty patch under the palms, sitting in an old webbed lawn chair, sipping a beer and playing with his kids, laughing through his broken teeth.
I’ve written a number of stories that have been lost. Many were brief but based on truth, compounds of things I’ve lived or seen. I remember bits of one that was set in the Philippines; it was about Mickey, a professional diver. Mickey had come to the Philippines courtesy of the U.S. Navy who had also trained him to be a diver. He was in and out of Subic over several re-enlistments where he spent long, beer-fed evenings, leaning on the greasy counter of an Olongopo girlie bar, a world away from his North Carolina white-trash roots: a fatherless family made up of numerous, quarrelling siblings and an indifferent mother.
It was inevitable that Mickey would fall for one of the girls that drank and loved the sailors in that string of bars facing the main entrance to the base; whether the cause was lust, love or loneliness or a combination of all three didn’t much matter in the grand scheme of things, one of girls was going to provide what Mickey needed.
Rose was the name of the one that Mickey ultimately learned to love. She came from the south side of Manila Bay, Batangas province. Like most poor Filipino families, Rose’s was large. She was the sixth child. Her father was a contract worker at Shell’s Tabangao Refinery. The work was good but only occasional. When he didn’t work he would drink and gamble with his friends. When he didn’t gamble, he would come home and make more babies with Rose’s amiable, fat mother.
Rose grew up in a concrete-block house on a dirt road that ended amongst some palms and a bit of sand and rock along the sea. The air was clean and there was just enough food. She learned to read a bit and to add and subtract. Her uncle ran a small store selling soda and cigarettes. At 16 Rose worked for him but when he began to touch her and pester her for sex, she left by bus for Olongopo where her cousin made good money working in a contract laundry for the U.S. Navy.
Only Rose’s cousin didn’t work for a contract laundry. She was a bar girl at the Power House.
Before long Rose’s scruples gave way before her greed and the 16 year-old was pounding beers with the sailors, fending off their groping hands and, occasionally, sleeping with one.
Rose wasn’t the prettiest girl at the Power House, she bordered on plain and she was skinny but Rose had a quality that drew Mickey to her, she was what the Indian matrimonials advertise as ‘homely’ and it was her domesticity that ultimately captivated Mickey. Rose filled a hole in Mickey’s life, an unarticulated need for family.
The two of them moved in together off base where they rented a two room flat above a shop during Mickey’s last tour. When his enlistment was up, they married and moved to another small but much quieter place overlooking clear seas at the end of a track near a Batangas beach. Mickey opened a dive shop with his savings and gave Scuba lessons to a few backpacking tourists and some wealthy locals. He was popular and laid back. Far from the most ambitious man in the world, Mickey seemed content to earn enough to pay the rent on the cement shack that served as shop and home to Rose and him. Children soon came, one after the other. The children lit up the faces of both parents, Mickey would spend long afternoon playing in the surf with them and evenings they would curl up around him and Rose as they watched their snowy, black and white TV, a wedding gift from Rose’s groping uncle. No longer objectionable, the uncle now behaved most respectfully towards his niece, partly, I’m sure, out of fear of Mickey’s brawny arms.
It was a good life for Mickey. I met him one day when, on a trip to the Shell offices at Tabangao, I stopped for lunch at a beach-side restaurant where Mickey was sharing a soda with several locals. We had little in common besides being American and each having once lived for a time in North Carolina. Still, it was enough for a conversation.
Over the years I lived in the Philippines I would see Mickey from time to time when I travelled into the provinces. Although he lived no more than a hundred miles from the capital, in all the time I knew him, I never heard of him coming to Manila. He changed very little, his face became more leathery and creased from the sun and the salt water. He had a smile that was individualised by cracked and worn teeth, some broken in fights at Olongopo and elsewhere during his Navy career, and he developed a beer gut that, strangely, seemed to suit him and secretly please Rose who was one of those cooks who fry everything. I can still close my eyes and smell her kitchen and the fresh fish that she prepared the few times that I ate with her and Mickey. Each time I would bring some toys for the kids – I think there were about 7 at the last count – some fabric for Rose to make up into clothes for the kids and a few beers for Mickey. We wouldn’t talk much, we’d sit outside on a couple of ratty old folding chairs and stare at the water, sucking a couple of beers. When the food was ready, we’d eat in the darkness of their unlit living room. Afterwards we’d drink coffee brewed from strong, Filipino beans.
As the heat of the afternoon crept even into the shade where we would sit, I’d make my excuses and drive back to Manila, the air-conditioning on full, insulating me from the land through which I drove and in which Mickey had chosen to live and, one day, die. You see, although the tale is one of languid happiness, ultimately it was a tragedy because one day Mickey disappeared into a South China Sea squall that had blown up quickly during the course of an afternoon. Some outrigger fishermen were caught by the storm a few miles offshore; they were visible between sheeting bands of heavy, almost horizontal rain. Their distress was obvious and their peril real. Mickey and two neighbours, all three combining fearlessness and foolishness in equal measure, went out in a small motorboat to bring them in. When the storm had blown itself out, the scattered outriggers were all found swept ashore on scattered beaches down the Batangas coast but the boat in which Mickey and two others had gone out to save the fishermen had disappeared.
It’s been 15 years since last I lived in those green islands. There was no way to keep direct contact with Mickey’s family and I lost touch even with those who might have known what happened to them. In a way that’s okay because I’ve kept Mickey alive in my world; I have put him back on that dusty patch under the palms, sitting in an old webbed lawn chair, sipping a beer and playing with his kids, laughing through his broken teeth.
20 February 2004
Train Spotted
Sitting uncomfortably in a narrow seat that refuses to recline even the slightest bit, my unknown travelling companion, in the next chair, is equally or more physically distressed, the latter possibility more likely than not because of his bulk (indeed, he makes me, a rather pudgy 50-ish type, feel almost svelte). Whatever the relative merits of our individual suffering, there is no doubt that we are both pretty miserable. This is not your sleek modern train, it’s a three car special across the Styx, passenger comfort is not a criteria nor, it seems, is punctuality for this morning we are embarrassingly late; I will be one of those last arrivals to my office today, wandering in after everyone else has settled down to the new week, trying to look harried, as if I’ve just swam, climbed and fought my way through the wilderness to arrive here, dedicated to my work, anxious to be at the side of my brethren as we do the company’s bidding.
My eyes feel red; I got up before the dairy farmers. I’ve tried to work some but there is no room to spread out and I’m not in the mood to read so I just stare blankly ahead where there is a row of three folding seats that are, if possible, even more uncomfortable than the one I’m occupying. Those three must be miserable because they are the absolute last to be filled and, indeed, we pass a number of stations without even one being occupied (the option of clambering over someone on the aisle to take a window being preferable). Ultimately, though, they fill up and, as we near London, amazingly, one is occupied by a Vision.
Withdrawn, unapproachable the way a beautiful woman must learn to be (or so most of them have always seemed to me), a woman from the 1960’s occupies the seat in front of me. She is the pinnacle of the ‘60’s ideal – Julie Christie, Twiggy. Her black hair is straight and hangs around her shoulders, nothing out of place. She has bangs that complete the frame around a face that comes straight out of a dream about the women of that decade. Her eyes are large and blue with long, black lashes. Her skin is pale and unblemished.
I suppose I’m so tired that I can’t help staring but the Vision seems oblivious, she doesn’t even move her head in irritated acknowledgement of my stares. After a couple of minutes respite from the real world, restfully letting my gaze linger on the Madonna face, I realise what I’m doing and re-focus, moving my eyes about but, they keep coming back, glancing at the Vision. She’s real but so very far away.
Then, as we near London, she moves for the first time (Pygmalion lives), reaches down and opens her purse from where she takes out, astoundingly, cigarette papers and a pouch of Bugler cigarette tobacco. Delicate fingers then begin to roll precisely judged pinches of the tobacco into cigarettes. She continues this, each new fire-stick very nearly identical to the previous one, until we begin to slow down to dock at Paddington. The tannoy bleats the announcement of our arrival, she folds up her papers and the pouch of tobacco and places the bespoke cigarettes into a silverish holder, rises, ethereal – and, now, very real and earthy – her bag stuffed with cheap, hand-rolled smokes and then, the door open, delicately picks her way into the crowd and out of my life.
Sitting uncomfortably in a narrow seat that refuses to recline even the slightest bit, my unknown travelling companion, in the next chair, is equally or more physically distressed, the latter possibility more likely than not because of his bulk (indeed, he makes me, a rather pudgy 50-ish type, feel almost svelte). Whatever the relative merits of our individual suffering, there is no doubt that we are both pretty miserable. This is not your sleek modern train, it’s a three car special across the Styx, passenger comfort is not a criteria nor, it seems, is punctuality for this morning we are embarrassingly late; I will be one of those last arrivals to my office today, wandering in after everyone else has settled down to the new week, trying to look harried, as if I’ve just swam, climbed and fought my way through the wilderness to arrive here, dedicated to my work, anxious to be at the side of my brethren as we do the company’s bidding.
My eyes feel red; I got up before the dairy farmers. I’ve tried to work some but there is no room to spread out and I’m not in the mood to read so I just stare blankly ahead where there is a row of three folding seats that are, if possible, even more uncomfortable than the one I’m occupying. Those three must be miserable because they are the absolute last to be filled and, indeed, we pass a number of stations without even one being occupied (the option of clambering over someone on the aisle to take a window being preferable). Ultimately, though, they fill up and, as we near London, amazingly, one is occupied by a Vision.
Withdrawn, unapproachable the way a beautiful woman must learn to be (or so most of them have always seemed to me), a woman from the 1960’s occupies the seat in front of me. She is the pinnacle of the ‘60’s ideal – Julie Christie, Twiggy. Her black hair is straight and hangs around her shoulders, nothing out of place. She has bangs that complete the frame around a face that comes straight out of a dream about the women of that decade. Her eyes are large and blue with long, black lashes. Her skin is pale and unblemished.
I suppose I’m so tired that I can’t help staring but the Vision seems oblivious, she doesn’t even move her head in irritated acknowledgement of my stares. After a couple of minutes respite from the real world, restfully letting my gaze linger on the Madonna face, I realise what I’m doing and re-focus, moving my eyes about but, they keep coming back, glancing at the Vision. She’s real but so very far away.
Then, as we near London, she moves for the first time (Pygmalion lives), reaches down and opens her purse from where she takes out, astoundingly, cigarette papers and a pouch of Bugler cigarette tobacco. Delicate fingers then begin to roll precisely judged pinches of the tobacco into cigarettes. She continues this, each new fire-stick very nearly identical to the previous one, until we begin to slow down to dock at Paddington. The tannoy bleats the announcement of our arrival, she folds up her papers and the pouch of tobacco and places the bespoke cigarettes into a silverish holder, rises, ethereal – and, now, very real and earthy – her bag stuffed with cheap, hand-rolled smokes and then, the door open, delicately picks her way into the crowd and out of my life.
07 February 2004
Dawn Spill … Tuesday notes meant for a Monday (3 February 2004)
I must somehow make this day amusing; actually passing through it was not but the raw materials were, I’m thinking now (at the beginning of this piece), sufficient to father a smile.
Firstly, I was up very early. Another Monday (to note that it is Tuesday is a mere quibble); another dawn flight to another city that, over the years, has become everycity. The coffee maker chose today not to work, augury of what was to come. The benighted machine failed to perform not in any conventional way, it chose to make coffee but not convey said beverage into the coffee pot. This is considered impossible, the machine is supposed to be fool proof but, I have decided, it is only idiot proof; against a pure, 100% fool, like myself, it is completely helpless. There are engineered defences against the possibility that the newly brewed coffee might fail to reach its objective, the thermos carafe; for the coffee to arrive at the latter, one must jam said receptacle into a designed space under the filter basket where, by which jamming action, is popped open a valve-like contraption that permits the hot water, freshly boiled, to percolate through the ground beans and the fine mesh paper filter and, traversing a tiny aperture, exit into the stainless carafe below. Today, however, the coffee failed to attain its objective and was, instead, pooled either on the granite counter top or dripping into the open drawer where we keep our supplies of ground coffee, filters, tea, herbal infusions and chocolates. By the time I made my way back to the scene of neglect (after initiating the process by pressing the ‘on’ button, I futzed about, packing and so on whilst all the coffee-brewing excitement occurred), all of these things were semi-floating in about a quarter of an inch of cold coffee (amazing how rapidly the stuff chills on frosty mornings when it fails to land in the insulated container!).
It took me a full ten minutes to sop up all of the coffee and another ten to brew a new pot. At last I had a cup of fragrant, rich, hot coffee! I perched myself in front of the TV and watched the early morning news although, scandalous admission, I did flip over ITV 2 to check the conditions in the Australian rain forest and see whether Jordan’s boobs might have fallen out of her top overnight. The former is sweaty and overgrown, the latter is, honestly, not worth waiting for unless you hold shares in Dupont and think the knocker-on effect will buoy the price. In the event I grew quickly bored and turned back to Sky’s 0530 broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. Mr. Rather, famous for his hugely overworked country similes during the last election, is, fortunately, still fascinated by the U.S. presidential election process, a fascination I share. Somehow, Rather is beyond cynical and simply observes the whole process with a weary wonder.
At this stage, with everything still pretty much to play for, there is a perverse pleasure, akin to the Australians’ delight in ‘topping’ whatever tall poppies their society might throw up, in witnessing the decline and fall of, mostly, egotistical Deomocratic dreams about power and popularity in the bright snows and harsh election reality of New Hampshire or, later, South Carolina or New Mexico. What I fail to understand, the fun and games of primary season apart, is how, in all seriousness, at this time and in this world, any reasonably educated, right-thinking, compassionate American could remain Republican. We owe it to our posterity to rid the country of this man Bush and his cronies. They must be retired! Not only Bush, but Cheney must go! The United State of Halliburton must no longer be the voice of our people!
Americans must grow up. If we are to create the society that we want, one that is just, which provides real opportunity, we must accept that our will can only be expressed collectively via Government and, therefore, Government must be truly representative, just and pro-active, reflecting our hopes, dreams and will. Taxes are the inevitable cost of creating this world. Pay up and be content with the smaller house, happy in the knowledge that, because you have chosen to create as close to a fair society as you can, everyone else has a house as well, that only the hardest core sleep in refrigerator cartons. Be happy that there is a park within easy distance of every kid’s door and that the schools they go to provide an education and are not places to park unwanted or unexpected offspring. Expect that when you go to the emergency room of the nearby hospital, your child’s arm bent strangely after her street-dance recital, you don’t have to wait for credit processing before the doctor will see and treat you. Expect also that the doctor and the staff at the hospital will treat you as fellow citizens, acknowledging your existence in a manner that dignifies, does not demean you, whatever your capacity to afford the treatment that will be meted all equally.
But, I digress or, maybe, this time I don’t …
One thing for sure, my reflections on the American political scene have made me less than amused. Dave Barry has it right; you must laugh at it. We are obligated to cry out for change but it is right to do it through a smile! Lives of quiet desperation are so because those who live them choose to define them that way.
I'll save the story of the two airports, one missed flight, the train, the bus, the taxi, two missed meals and the bad wine for another time when I elect to write my own Gormenghast -- a day in a book.
I must somehow make this day amusing; actually passing through it was not but the raw materials were, I’m thinking now (at the beginning of this piece), sufficient to father a smile.
Firstly, I was up very early. Another Monday (to note that it is Tuesday is a mere quibble); another dawn flight to another city that, over the years, has become everycity. The coffee maker chose today not to work, augury of what was to come. The benighted machine failed to perform not in any conventional way, it chose to make coffee but not convey said beverage into the coffee pot. This is considered impossible, the machine is supposed to be fool proof but, I have decided, it is only idiot proof; against a pure, 100% fool, like myself, it is completely helpless. There are engineered defences against the possibility that the newly brewed coffee might fail to reach its objective, the thermos carafe; for the coffee to arrive at the latter, one must jam said receptacle into a designed space under the filter basket where, by which jamming action, is popped open a valve-like contraption that permits the hot water, freshly boiled, to percolate through the ground beans and the fine mesh paper filter and, traversing a tiny aperture, exit into the stainless carafe below. Today, however, the coffee failed to attain its objective and was, instead, pooled either on the granite counter top or dripping into the open drawer where we keep our supplies of ground coffee, filters, tea, herbal infusions and chocolates. By the time I made my way back to the scene of neglect (after initiating the process by pressing the ‘on’ button, I futzed about, packing and so on whilst all the coffee-brewing excitement occurred), all of these things were semi-floating in about a quarter of an inch of cold coffee (amazing how rapidly the stuff chills on frosty mornings when it fails to land in the insulated container!).
It took me a full ten minutes to sop up all of the coffee and another ten to brew a new pot. At last I had a cup of fragrant, rich, hot coffee! I perched myself in front of the TV and watched the early morning news although, scandalous admission, I did flip over ITV 2 to check the conditions in the Australian rain forest and see whether Jordan’s boobs might have fallen out of her top overnight. The former is sweaty and overgrown, the latter is, honestly, not worth waiting for unless you hold shares in Dupont and think the knocker-on effect will buoy the price. In the event I grew quickly bored and turned back to Sky’s 0530 broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. Mr. Rather, famous for his hugely overworked country similes during the last election, is, fortunately, still fascinated by the U.S. presidential election process, a fascination I share. Somehow, Rather is beyond cynical and simply observes the whole process with a weary wonder.
At this stage, with everything still pretty much to play for, there is a perverse pleasure, akin to the Australians’ delight in ‘topping’ whatever tall poppies their society might throw up, in witnessing the decline and fall of, mostly, egotistical Deomocratic dreams about power and popularity in the bright snows and harsh election reality of New Hampshire or, later, South Carolina or New Mexico. What I fail to understand, the fun and games of primary season apart, is how, in all seriousness, at this time and in this world, any reasonably educated, right-thinking, compassionate American could remain Republican. We owe it to our posterity to rid the country of this man Bush and his cronies. They must be retired! Not only Bush, but Cheney must go! The United State of Halliburton must no longer be the voice of our people!
Americans must grow up. If we are to create the society that we want, one that is just, which provides real opportunity, we must accept that our will can only be expressed collectively via Government and, therefore, Government must be truly representative, just and pro-active, reflecting our hopes, dreams and will. Taxes are the inevitable cost of creating this world. Pay up and be content with the smaller house, happy in the knowledge that, because you have chosen to create as close to a fair society as you can, everyone else has a house as well, that only the hardest core sleep in refrigerator cartons. Be happy that there is a park within easy distance of every kid’s door and that the schools they go to provide an education and are not places to park unwanted or unexpected offspring. Expect that when you go to the emergency room of the nearby hospital, your child’s arm bent strangely after her street-dance recital, you don’t have to wait for credit processing before the doctor will see and treat you. Expect also that the doctor and the staff at the hospital will treat you as fellow citizens, acknowledging your existence in a manner that dignifies, does not demean you, whatever your capacity to afford the treatment that will be meted all equally.
But, I digress or, maybe, this time I don’t …
One thing for sure, my reflections on the American political scene have made me less than amused. Dave Barry has it right; you must laugh at it. We are obligated to cry out for change but it is right to do it through a smile! Lives of quiet desperation are so because those who live them choose to define them that way.
I'll save the story of the two airports, one missed flight, the train, the bus, the taxi, two missed meals and the bad wine for another time when I elect to write my own Gormenghast -- a day in a book.
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