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I suppose the argument can be made (I think it’s bullshit, but the argument is often made) that global warming is just part of the natural warming and cooling cycle of the planet.  Nonetheless, open water in the arctic, the melting of the glaciers in Greenland, and the steadily increasing (in numbers and severity) of tornadoes and hurricanes makes it hard to deny that it’s actually happening.

What lurks beneath the ancient ice?

This story adds a bit more anecdotal evidence.  A group of hikers in Norway just found some arrowheads, and a bow, that are seriously old.  Some of the arrowheads were 5,400 years old.  That’s well before the Romans.  Before the golden age of Athens, although there were probably some ancient Mediterranean civilizations.  Egypt was already a thing.

But up in Norway, people were still smearing their bodies in bear fat and covering themselves in animal skins.  They probably lived in caves, when they could find them.  And those arrowheads have been covered up in ice and snow, from now until then.

It makes me think  that there is a good side to global warming.  Although some archaeologists think this is a bad thing (read the article), to me it seems that without the meltoff, this stuff just would have remained invisible to us.

I also imagine that, while we may lose Florida and the Seychelles, enough land in Greenland, Canada and Siberia  will become usable that it will make up for it.

I am not saying global warming is a good thing.  It is a catastrophe and we should try to stop it by using alternative energy sources, building high speed rail lines and planting billions and billions more trees.

But maybe we should also be trying to figure out how to take advantage of it.  Because, like it or not, man made or not (it’s man made), it’s happening and it’s too late to stop it completely.

I saw two articles on the Huffing a Ton of Paste today which I didn’t even consider reading.  “22 Things to Never Say to a Multiracial Person” and “9 Things People Over 50 Don’t Want to Hear.”  Just about every day they have some article like that.  12 Things You Shouldn’t Say to a Pregnant Woman, The Top 6 Things You Shouldn’t Say to a Childless Couple, 8  Things You Shouldn’t Say to a Handicapped Person.

It’s not only worn out as a meme, it’s downright counterproductive.  The world needs more communication, no less.  More openness, not more closedness.  So, I’d like it if they started posted lists like 10 Things You Should Say to a Stranger on a Train, or whoever.  The key is that “should say” is better than “should not say.”

If everybody goes around memorizing lists of what not to say to various easily offended groups of people, most people will just say nothing at all, and that’s not very friendly.  The other day, as I was coming out of the grocery store, there was a woman walking in my direction (although still at enough of a distance I could pretend I didn’t see her, and there were plenty of people between her and me) who was probably homeless, probably drunk, and very visibly missing one leg.  She was shouting at the top of her lungs “Yeah, that’s right, look away, you bunch of fucking assholes, look away, nothing to see here, yeah, I’m invisible” or something like that, my Czech is not perfect, but she was definitely pissed that people were deliberately ignoring her, and there were definitely a few obscenities sprinkled in there.

I kept walking, because I don’t want to engage crazy, bitter homeless people in conversation any more than the next person.  Also, I realize it may be a bit flippant of me to say “various easily offended groups.”  I am white, male, able bodied, and heterosexual.  I belong to just about every privileged group there is, except rich and famous.

That said, I don’t think we need a list (certainly not a 22 item list) of things not to say to a multiracial person.  Most of them are probably  common sense, and a lot of them will depend on the person and your relationship to them.  So maybe 22 Things Not to Say to a Multiracial Person unless you are dating them, or unless maybe you are just as multiracial as they are, or unless you are their doctor or psychologist or AA sponsor.

Also, some people can get away with saying things that others can’t.  So, “7 Things Not to Say to a Childless Couple unless you’re the kind of person who can naturally get away with saying any old shit to anybody” might be a more reasonable list. I’ve known people like that, although I’m not one of them.  I think the key is openness and a sense of humor.

Anyway, I’m just tired of the whole “things you can’t say”  attitude.  Keep your attitude friendly, respectful and open and anything you say will probably be all right.  If it’s not, then fuck ’em.

My Aunt, my mother’s big sister, Bernice Silver, puppeteer and entertainer, is 100 years old today!

The big party is next week and most of my family will be in New York to celebrate it.  We’ll be following from here in Prague.

Aunt Bernice

100 years is a pretty amazing span.  1913 isn’t just before WWII, it’s before WWI, which wasn’t even called WWI  until WWII broke out.  It was called The Great War, but I guess calling WWII the Greater War just would have sounded silly, like it was a competition or something.  Besides, what would you say then when WWIII breaks out, the Super Duper War?  No, needed to nip that in the bud.

1913 isn’t just before the internet, it’s before television.  Cinemas were starting to pop up here and there, but they didn’t have sound until Bernice was a teenager.  The bad guy would tie the curly haired blondie girl  to the railroad tracks, you’d cut to a card saying “Help! Help!” and the good guy would ride up in the nick of time on the jerkiest running horse you ever have seen.  Seriously.  100 years.

Cars had been invented by 1913, but they were still, for the most part, big black boxes, and there was still occasional horse traffic, even on the streets of New York City, where she lived her whole life.  In fact, Ford launched its 1st moving assembly line in 1913.  Things started to change pretty quick after that.

1913 is not just before the fall of Communism, it’s before the rise of Communism.  Russia still had a Czar.  Rasputin, the mad monk, was busy drinking huge amounts of vodka and shagging every available female in Moscow, while advising the Czar and Czarina right over the cliff.  (Prague was still a provincial center within the Austro-Hungarian empire.)

1913 is not only before 9/11, it’s before the Twin Towers were built.  Before the Empire State Building was built. Before the Chrysler Building was built. The tallest building in the world, at 50 some stories, was the Woolworth Building.  Still in New York, though.

Some things haven’t changed.  Kids still love puppets.  Singing and dancing still make people happy.  And imagination will still take you a long, long way.  These things, like my Aunt Bernice, are timeless.

Happy Birthday, Bernice.  And many more.

One of my facebook friends was lamenting today that those writers who are the most persistent, the loudest, the most aggressive (personally, not in their writing) are the ones who are getting published, who are winning the prizes, who are earning the plaudits.

That is probably true, because it is true in most fields and most walks of life and there’s no reason to suspect that writing should be any different.  Well, actually, there is.  You’d think the arts would be different because talent should  shine through, people should be interested in looking at the paintings which are the greatest paintings and reading the books which are the best books and watching the films which are the best films but we no more do that than we always insist on eating only gourmet food and never watching crap on TV.

Unknown artist

There are many factors which come into play and one of them is that often as not we will look at, eat, listen to, or read whatever is put in front of us because we are too lazy to have our internal editors working 24/7.  Maybe I’m being too hard on people when I say “too lazy.”  If we were constantly looking for only the best in every aspect of our lives, like Uncle Oswald, we would a) go nuts and b)cut ourselves off from the lower levels of human culture, which has certain joys of its own.

Still, that leaves the power with the publishers, and the critics, and the promoters, and it means that those who are most aggressive about pushing their own work will have an advantage in the fame game.

What to do?  Well, I suppose there are two choices.  Become more like them, and spend more time and effort on self-promotion.  I know I don’t really want to do that.  Writing is hard work but it’s work I enjoy doing (i.e. not work).  Self-promotion is pain in the ass, depressing, humiliating work.

Possibility two is to try and become such a brilliant writer, such a skillful weaver of words, a blender of sounds and meanings, a master of metaphor, and an  expert evoker of emotions, that you can’t be ignored.

That’s what I’m going for.