Funmurphys: the Blog

Juan Williams Vs. Sylvester Brown

Sylvester Brown's column today was titled:Blaming blacks is popular with some, but it's perilously naive. An alternate could be I'll be blaming whites for the next 210 years. Juan Williams wrote a book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About I (which I haven't read - yet) that echoes a lot of Bill Cosby's laments and self help advice for poor blacks.

Sylvester does what he so often does - misunderstand and mischaracterize: "This diatribe - that the black man is inherently flawed, violent and savage - is older than the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria." If that were so, why are Mr. Cosby and Mr. Williams offering advice to blacks? If the black man were inherently flawed, violent and savage, why would they say if you stop a couple of behaviors and start a couple of others, you'd be much, much better off? How could the advice, which applies equally well to poor whites, "begin with getting a high school education, not having children until one is twenty-one and married, working hard at any job, and being good parents" be so offensive to some?

Sylvester says: "The "blame blacks" message appeals to many whites because it deflects accountability." Hmm, what does the blame white message do, Mr Brown? And really, if you think whites really are this mass of institutional racism, why entrust us with the responsibility for black success? Seems kind of, well, stupid, doesn't it?

Travel Day: Lausanne to Interlaken

All good things must come to an end, and so we left Lausanne and made our way to Interlaken.

On the way there we stopped at the Nestle/Cailler chocolate factory in Broc. I have to admit I had my doubts to start with because its a bit off the beaten path -- off the autobahn at Bulle, then through Broc and quiet residential side streets, then back out of town and around a a low escarpment until at last you see the sterile facade of what appears to be a shipping department -- I'm hoping that whatever it is they give tours so I'm not lost. It's a little bit of a walk to the actual entrance from the visitor's parking, past what looks like the charming original building to another modern facility, and it's at this point I'm wondering just why we came here. But the receptionist is so jolly in explaining the route we are supposed to take and what we will meet along the way I don't even mind the nominal entrance fee. She went into such detail I just had to ask if it is easy to get lost but she assured me that we would always know which way to go as long as we leave any room by a different door than we entered. Not just a tour, but a logic puzzle as well. I wanted to ask with every fiber in my being "So where do you keep the Oompah Loompahs?" but I couldn't summon the requisite sang froid to pull it off, and I don't want to spoil our blossoming relationship with a lead balloon witticism.

So instead its off to the European ideal of a chocolate factory tour, which has some neat stuff like how they make chocolate, what the ingredients are, in a phrase the nuts and bolts of the operation, a dash of history, and a whole bunch of pretentious prattle about the experience of chocolate and the glories of the Cailler brand. We didn't actually get to see any making of chocolate - the only view of the factory floor gave the distinct impression this wing had been decomissioned when Nixon was president. But we did get to watch a film made no later than the Eisenhower administration about a girl who visited the Cailler factory in her jammies Christmas eve, possibly while sleepwalking. Since it was in French and about the only French I remember is je ne parle pas Francais -- I told you I love logic puzzles -- some of the details sailed over my head. In the movie everyone was so helpful and delighted to see her, even the night watchman who invited her in and and showed her around, she snagged a giant candy bar on Christmas morning -- Cailler Frigor naturally.

And then it was on to the tasting room. The room was underwhelming to look at, but oh, what transports of joy and raptures of delight awaited within. The room was long and narrow, with the entire line of Cailler chocolate several times over on top of glass cases along the long axis of the room. I am not a chocoholic, and I normally prefer salt/grease snacks (i.e. potato and corn chips), but an all you can eat buffet of swiss chocolate is a sensual experience words can't describe. There was an abundance of chocolate because it is set up for bus tours and they were between buses while we were there. All I can say is that there was no comparison between that chocolate and the run of the mill milk chocolate I usually eat. Apparently even the milk they use is special, from Gruyere (yes, the cheese).

THE TASTING ROOM AT CAILLER'S -- OH HOW I MISS THIS ROOM

Then it was on to the store, with me kicking and screaming the whole way. The Fruit each picked out a big candy bar for themselves, and we bought some for gifts. I don't know if it was because we were at a factory outlet or the restaurant prices had thrown us off, but the chocolate actually seemed cheap. As it turned out, we would leave the gift chocolate behind the in the refrigerator of our hotel in Interlaken upon departure. Good thing the Fruit didn't even wait until we got to the hotel to scarf down there chocolate bars. We wound up buying a giant bar of Toblerone at the Brussels airport with the last of our Euros as a gift for the girls who watched Trooper while we were away.

Thus satiated and unaware of the loss of the chocolate that lay ahead, we drove back through Broc towards Bulle. We noticed a gorgeous castle on a hill top and after a quick consult with the guidebook (If you are going to spend thousands on a trip don't false economize -- get a guidebook) the funWife announced it was Gruyere, it was a town plus a castle and it was open to the public. After only one wrong turn we arrived at a parking lot at the foot of the hill. Since the guidebook also informed us that there were no cars allowed in town, we parked there. Then it was a huff and puff up the steep trail until we came to the outer wall of the town.

GRUYERE EXUDES CHARM THE WAY I EXUDE PERSPIRATION -- IN BUCKETS

Gruyere is a town that defines picture postcard perfect. The view of the mountain, the cobblestones, the old buildings, the colorful flowers and banners, the hilltop setting -- the whole assemblage was made for photos hundreds of years before the invention of photography. The quaint restaurants and shops beckoned, but our motto was excelsior! So we didn't linger in town, we made our way ever onward and upward towards the castle. I find old castles fascinating, but its clear it was good to be the baron, and not the horde of laborers and artisans who built the castle.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU CALL THIS, BUT IT LOOKS REALLY COOL

LOWER PARTS OF THE CASTLE FROM A HIGHER PART

A DRAMATIC VIEW OF CASTLE GRUYERE FROM THE FORMAL GARDEN

And then it was on to Berne. The funWife and I had been here before sixteen years ago on a cold day in October and had a wonderful time. We were there again on a warm day in August, and it was a lot more crowded. A lot. As in who are all these people, and what are they doing in my way? I admit I got off the Autobahn too soon (not that there are a lot of exits for any town) and that coupled with the abysmal driving might have made ever so slightly cranky until we parked the car, but once we parked I was Mr. Sunshine. Perhaps my ancestral homeland was calling out to my blood (I believe it was saying "Don't take sides!") - -my Great-Grandfather Senti was from Berne. Apparently the swiss blood ran too dilute in the veins of the Fruit of the Murphy Loins, as rest of the family didn't want to linger once there. It could be, I admit, that I just wanted to stay out of the car for longer, a lot longer, but I do like Berne and we really didn't do anything beyond wander around for a while. We didn't even go to one museum!

BEAUTIFUL BUSTLING BERNE

So it was back into the car and on to our hotel in Interlaken. We thought Berne was crowded, but Interlaken as absolutely thronged with tourists and far more crowded than Berne. Progress down the main drag, the Hohenweg, was very slow as long streams of pedestrians held up traffic at every crosswalk. I knew roughly where the hotel was since I remembered it from the time, sixteen years ago (notice a pattern here?), we stayed at the Royal St. Georges and there were no Fruit of the Murphy Loins, just a gleam in each of my eyes. If it weren't for the geraniums overflowing the window boxes and obscuring the sign for the hotel I wouldn't have passed it up. Still, it's nice to a get a tour of the town before settling in, as I always say, at least I do when I pass the hotel up and have to go quite aways before finding a place to turn around. But eventually we made it and we were all glad to get out of the car this time.

Pluto Is Too A Planet

Astronomers can take Pluto away when they pry my dead, cold fingers from it.

And let's not even mention Uranus.

A Real Breakthrough

For those of us who object to embryonic stem cell research because it destroys human life, this is a real breathrough: removing a single cell from an embyro. The embryo is apparently unharmed, and the single cell can be used for stem cells.

Right now, my biggest objection is changing apparently unharmed into definitely not harmed. Since the procedure of removing a cell has already been performed on many people who started life in vitro, I'm hoping that they can be studied to determine the safety of the procedure.

There is the concern as well that this involves experimentation without consent. One answer is that it is already being performed, so we aren't talking about something new. But more fully, the question is one of safety. Unlike cloning , where animal clonings have shown real problems and for which I would have big concerns for that reason, this method has been used for testing purposes on people and again apparently isn't a big problem. If there are problems, then I would object that it is experimentation without consent.

As to the claim that you could, through further manipulation, create a clone embryo and thus human life this way, I'm not impressed. The possibility exists that someday any cell may be turned into an embryo via manipulation, but I'm not going to stop brushing my teeth because I knock a few cells loose from my cheeks and flush them down drain when doing so.

I have to guard my optimism because medicine is a field that over announces breakthroughs -- but tends to deliver improvements.

Dark Matter Revealed

Astronomers looking at a collision of two giant galaxy clusters have concluded that dark matter is real, not just an inconvenient explanation of certain astronomical observations. Dark matter now joins a growing array of phenomenon that we know exist only indirectly. What a strange place the universe is.

Free Spirit or Cold Blooded Killer?

Michael Lee Shaver, Jr. has been charged with at keast one murder after confessing to seven. He made a living off robbing and killing drug dealers. I'm going to skip right over the grisly part of how he hid the evidence, and to right to what his neighbors had to say:

Neighbors on Southfork Drive said Shaver never fit in with other residents of the rural subdivision, where homes are built on three- to five-acre wooded lots.

They said Shaver, his mother and her husband moved into the house more than four years ago when the owner of the home returned from a nursing home stay and needed help. Shaver’s mother, Shirley Bryson, 53, cared for the older man and stayed on after he died earlier this year.

The rest of the neighborhood wasn’t happy with that. Occasionally, unfamiliar people would live there for a while, neighbors said.

Keith McMeins said an ever-changing cast of characters visited the log home. Their musical taste ran to Led Zeppelin and “headbanger crap,” which they played loudly enough for the entire neighborhood to hear, McMeins said.

McMeins said he once caught Shaver walking off with a garden hose, which Shaver dropped after McMeins threatened to call the sheriff.

“What possessed you to take the hose?” McMeins asked.

“Jack Daniels,” he remembered Shaver replying.

Neighbor Russ Feeback said the heavily tattooed Shaver was a “basic, prison-looking guy.” He said people in the area noticed a lot of traffic at the house and often heard Shaver yelling.

Usually the neighbors say "he was such a quiet man", but not this time. And by the way, don't ever call Led Zeppelin "headbanger crap".

How To Take A Vacation

I go on vacation for two weeks and the place goes dark, even though I asked my two fellow contributors, whose contributions I look forward to eagerly, to please please post while I was unable to (I'm sorry, but when I'm paying large sums of money to enjoy Europe, I'm not going to be spending my time at an internet cafe writing about it). Tom Maguire goes on vacation, and he cleverly has a new post every day via Typepad delayed postings that are just open threads, and a week later he has 305 comments on a single post, and they aren't of the "Bush Sucks" caliber either. Yikes, thats more than half of the total comments for this blog. Still, I'm hoping that I had a better vacation -- I rate mine as wonderful.

Obama Calls South Africa On AIDS Response

I'm not a fan of Senator Obama, but I'm with him on this one -- South Africa is making a terrible mistake by advocating garlic, beetroot, lemon and African potatoes to combat Aids while underplaying the role of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. The only way I see that helping is the garlic keeping people apart. South Africa needs to get with the program and soon.

Lausanne Day 4 (Or We Discover France)

After three years of learning French in school, my daughter really wanted to go to France. Looking into it pre-trip, we considered driving to Lyon to see what was shaking in France, but decided instead to take the 35 minute boat ride across Lac Leman to Evian les Bains. Oddly enough, they spoke French there just like they did across the lake in Switzerland. I couldn't tell the difference, to tell you the truth -- the same architecture, language, lifestyle, even signage (road and pedestrian). The only difference was they used Euros instead of Swiss Francs. And being a little farther south, it did feel hotter. I only discovered after my return home of that it is the birthplace of Evian water and the site of the 2003 G8 summit.

DOWNTOWN EVIAN LES BAINS

GIANT POT WITH MUTANT PLANT PLUS A COUPLE OF CUTIES MAKES FOR A GREAT PHOTO

Surprisigly, Evian has a minature golf course, so we were able to continue the Murphy Family tradition of playing putt putt golf on vacation - the keeping track of the score, the feuding between the kids, the arguments over who is carrying enough of our stuff from hole to hole, and the ritual losing of a ball. It may not be a good tradition, but it is ours. This course provided a notable twist -- a large group of what turned out to be British school kids started to play shortly after we started the course. The management broke them into small groups and had them start all over the course in what I believe is known as a shotgun start. the boys ahead of us (one of whom was called Dobby) had a rule that if your ball left the green you had to start over. As their balls quite frequently left the course, we frequently had to wait while one boy kept playing the same hole over and over. Still, as my Grandfather once observed about peeing on the continental divide, not many people have played an American invention in France with British schoolboys. I'm hoping I never do again.

EVIAN FROM THE LAKE

MOUNTAINS TOWERING OVER EVIAN

We really enjoyed the boat ride across the lake, but it wasn't without its faults. The biggest is that you can only leave when the boat leaves, and while once every two hours sounds pretty frequent, we did spend some time wilting in the heat hoping the boat would hurry up. And when we left, just as we got up to full speed, the engine slowed way down and we turned around and went back to the dock. I was leaning against the stern rail, and the distaff side of the family sitting a little ahead of me inquired as to what was happening. I informed them that the boat was broken and we were returning to port for repairs. As it turned out, we had left a little early, and the boat was returning to pick up several passengers we had left behind. The distaff side was unhappy with me when it was clear that my explanation was wrong, but at least they stopped complaining when I inquired how they thought I would know anything about the operation of the boat standing at the stern rail -- telepathic communication with the captain perhaps?

WHO DOESN'T LIKE TO RIDE A BOAT?

THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF SCENERY IN SWITZERLAND

Our hotel in Lausanne charged big bucks for their breakfast - like $80 for the four of us - so we always found alternates. The first day we ate the pop tarts we had brought along. The next day we hiked halfway up the hillside to a restaurant and had croissants. While my wife had coffee, I ordered orange juice and got tangerine juice. The day after that we stopped in at a boulangerie, bought a variety of tasty food, and took it back and ate it on our balcony. The day after that we really went native: Kyle and I went to the Migros market and bought yogurt and croissants to eat. We weren't fully native since the milk I thought was 2% turned out to be half and half cream. I also had to buy a pack of 100 plastic spoons to eat the yogurt with, which left us with 96 spoons for the rest of the trip. As the yogurt was kiwi and something (OBG) we'd never heard of before, there was some resistance to eating it. My wife was convinced when I told her it was on sale, but no amount of cajoling could convince my daughter to eat any beyond her first bite. Thankfully, the rest of the hotels had a nice breakfast included so I was not dispatched to buy food with labels I couldn't read again. Another experience I'm glad I had but one will do me, thank you very much.

John Karr Arrested for the Murder of JonBenet Ramsey

Okay, my home town is in the national news again. Let's see if I can add some local angle to the story that you can't get from CNN.com.

Obviously the JonBenet Ramsey case was in the local paper for many months in 1997. A sizable amount of suspicion fell on her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey. They attended an Episcopal Church in town, and some of the horrible fascination with the crime centered around the idea that these respectable church-going people might have a dark side.

The homicide case of Mary and Matthew Winkler in Selmer, Tennessee is a blunt reminder that church-going folk can also commit terrible crimes, but I never considered the Ramseys as likely suspects. That scenario was just too complicated, requiring an elaborate pattern of deception on the part of the dead girl's parents. Naw!

When I thought about the case at all, I preferred the intruder theory. The most obvious clue was that the amount of money demanded for the ransom ($118,000) matched the bonus that John Ramsey had just received from Access Graphics. Who would know that amount? Some disgruntled employee, that's who. So find the disgruntled employee! What's the problem? But the police didn't seem to key in on that aspect of the crime. I don't deserve any credit here because I never figured out all the angles to the theory.

The Ramsey house itself has attracted some unwanted attention. The Boulder Daily Camera has carried several stories of fights breaking out on the street in front, usually between people wanting to take pictures and people wanting to protect what little privacy the family had left. The neighborhood itself is in an area of steep financial gradient between the low-priced student rentals near the University, and the high-priced mansions on small lots up next to the open space and mountain parks. Lots of people flow through the area.

I've ridden my bicycle by the house a few times, taking care not to appear too interested. They've done some landscaping – planting trees in the front yard, and other touches. The place looks different now than it did on that Christmas evening in 1996.

The Rocky Mountain News on August 17 published a short item “Under suspicion” on page 31A detailing the other suspects in the case. If you want get creeped out, consider these:

A man who showed up at a memorial service for JonBenet a year after her death. The man has a criminal history, including the sexual assault of a 7-year-old girl in Oregon. Around the time of the slaying, he was getting food and picking up mail at a church near the Ramsey home. When arrested on an unrelated charge in December, officials found a stun gun and a poem about JonBenet in his backpack.

A man living in a suburb east of Boulder who an informant said had a basement shrine to JonBenet. The shrine included a candy cane similar to the candy canes in the Ramsey's front yard at the time of the killing. The tipster also said the man owned stun guns.

A man once arrested in Oceanside, Calif., for a crime against a child. The man lived six blocks from JonBenet's home but disappeared soon after her death.

We locals would like to think that the arrest and apparent confession of John Karr means that the case is solved, that justice has been done at last. Karr could also be some wacko who wanted to attract a bunch of attention, so he did some research and made up a cruel story with himself at the center. The evidence will come out in the weeks and months ahead, so we'll just have to wait and see.

One final note: I'm sure thankful that my own daughter is leading a normal life: reading mystery stories, learning to dance and play soccer, sleeping in on Saturday mornings, looking at algae through her microscope, braiding her hair, and – just living. That's what little girls should be doing. If she complains about having to eat her whole dinner, I don't mind so much. Because sometimes I think, what if she were suddenly taken from me? Or brutally assaulted and murdered like JonBenet was? I know I would long to hear her complain about dinner just one more time.

Lausanne Day 3 (or It's Good To Be The King)

Every evening a storm moved through town, so we took a peddle boat ride on Lac Leman this morning (the night before the wind was blowing so hard the lake was covered in whitecaps). I had a wonderful time on the lake, only in part because I didn't do any peddling. The frame of the seat was just a tiny bit too small for the frame of my body, so when I got in gravity got me through it, but I was only going to get out once, which meant no changing seats to the front where the peddles were. Luckily a strapping young lad was at the dock to pull me back though on the dismount, which I was able to stick. No matter how hard we tried (my contribution was mainly moral support) we couldn't run down the gulls floating on the lake.

COME SAIL AWAY

COME SAIL AWAY

COME SAIL AWAY WITH ME

After our morning's exertions, we made the Fruit of the Murphy Loins happy and actually drove the car somewhere, namely down the lake just past Montreux to Chillon Castle. They use a lot of rock in building a castle, and we saw the castle from its raw rock roots to the fine stone work in its highest tower. We also saw a couple of original bathrooms -- a board with two holes which hung high over the lake. No EPA to worry about in the twelfth century A.D. I wanted to say "bombs away" but worried that people might misinterpret me, so I'm sharing it with you instead. I think it was because the Fruit were so overjoyed at going for a car ride and not having to walk that they would later say that this was their favorite day on vacation - or at least their favorite castle.

CHILLON CASTLE IN FULL

BRINGS NEW MEANING TO HAVE FUN STORMING THE CASTLE BOYS

THIS HAS TO BE THE NICEST LOCATION FOR GIFT SHOP ON THE PLANET

LOOK HONEY, A WALK IN FIREPLACE. I WOULDN'T BE COLD WITH ONE OF THESE BABYS

SLICES, DICES, AND MAKES JULIENNE CARROTS OUT OF THE BURGUNDIANS

WE CALL THIS THE BRADY BUNCH ROOM BECAUSE IT WAS SO GROOVY

THAT'S A LOT FURTHER THAN IT LOOKS

BOMBS AWAY!

And as always we finished up the evening with a trip down to Ouchy, although we did manage to pick a different place to eat. This time, no Chateau between us and the water.

Another Press Fault

You remember how the American press was bemoaning the perils of embedding - no, not that they would be physically hurt, but that they would become beholden to the American Armed Forces, and horrors! might even favor the military because they spent so much time with them.

Well, why don't they have similar worries when it comes to foreign stringers, who do the bulk of the international reporting for the American press? Instead, they have no worries about who they hire to do their reporting, no matter how often it leads to biased, inaccurate, or faked coverage. Apparently the press thinks foriegners are made of far sterner stuff than Americans, able to withstand any and all entanglements, biases, and scrupulously fair and honest.

Andrew Then And Now

Andrew Sullivan once warned of the dangers of a fifth column, now he's a member. (And it's all Bush's fault).

Feet Of Clay

As you already know if you care about such things, Gunther Grass, so called conscience of post-war Germany, was in the Waffen-SS in WW2. Mr. Grass kept silent about this until he spilled the beans in his autobiography, Peeling Onions. On the one hand, this is Hitler's SS were talking about, on the other hand he was a draftee into a military unit.

Was it the crime or the cover up? Certainly keeping silent all these years only to reveal the truth in a memoir that would be guaranteed to sell like hotcakes is more than just "bad form". Really, how can you be a conscience if you can't admit the truth, and then only for personal gain?

Mr Grass certainly has his share of defenders, like Salman Rushdie and John Irving, and I'm certainly unboard with the view that his body of work stands indepently of himself (a view that allows me to see most movies and TV shows these days). So I don't believe the claim you should ignore a book because of the author's shortcomings. But Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews, has a point when she claims thathis criticsism of his countrymen's inability to confront their complicity with Hitler is absurd when he can't confront his own -- but it isn't the criticism itself, it's Grass himself who becomes absurd. What is the difference between Bill Bennet and Gunther Grass?

Eamonn Fitzgerald points out that American records from his POW internment indicate Grass was a member of the SS, and the German press and biographers never bothered to look at them, even though the docoments are in the hands of a German organization in Berlin.

Lausanne Day 2 (Or Are We There Yet?)

Today we toured old town Lausanne. And that meant we had to go uphill. And uphill some more. The Fruit of the Murphy Loins were beginning to understand what this trip was all about when they kept asking why we couldn't drive there and we kept replying walking was easier, and then just "we're walking". We would rest on the benches at the bus stops, but we didn't consider resting on the seats on the bus.

When at long last we reached the Cathedral, we couldn't go uphill any more, so we started back downhill. Kyle then informed us that going downhill was actually harder than going uphill. It was only later that we would appreciate the easiest thing to do was sit on a park bench and eat an ice cream cone. I could have done that all day if I didn't have to leave the hotel and walk to an ice cream stand.

FRONT DOOR OF CATHEDRAL IN LAUSANNE, BOY HOPING FOR PEW TO SIT IN

I was very impressed with the old part of town, and I don't mean that part built around the turn of the century as I would in the midwest. The Romans came here to rest, relax and leave behind ruins, so it's only natural that Edward Gibbon wrote his classic "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" here as well. I especially liked the interior of the Saint Francois church, conveniently located in Place Saint Francois, which was light an airy on the inside despite the massive stone construction and the automatically opening massive bronze door. They also had this very charming eaterie called McDonalds that we ducked in for some liquid refreshment after our vertical ascent of the town.

GILT FREE INTERIOR OF SAINT FRANCOIS CHURCH

After a long day of going uphill and downhill and seeing buildings older than dirt, we straggled down little dog street (it sounds better in the original: rue de le petit chien), and eventually to our hotel where we collapsed in the AC. I didn't care to walk with a map in front of me all the time, and so on occasion we might not have taken the most direct route, but we got to see more scenery that way. And that's why we went there. If you want to take the most direct route, stick to American towns where the innovation of straight streets meeting at right angles was first discovered and actually put into use. Don't go to Europe where the concept of a straight line was not discovered until 1967, far to late to implement in their cities.

We returned to Ouchy that night for dinner at the same pizzeria we ate at the night before, only this time Erin accompanied us. Also this time Kyle and I tried the salad bar and discovered, in his own words, they sure do like cabbage over here. We had fun just hanging out at the lake front after dinner along with lots and lots of other people. Oddly enough, we felt like the only tourists in town -- we figured that Switzerland would be full of tourists in summer, but we were wrong, which just goes to show that there's a first time for every thing.

KYLE WINNING AT CHESS

A crowd of older men and, during our stay, four American tourists hung out at a large outdoor chess board with large wooden pieces at the lakefront. After carefully watching the games and noting that the players were prone to making mistakes, Kyle actually played a couple of games and won them both. At times the onlookers would get quite animated, and during Kyle's second game one gentleman looked like he would suffer a stroke if Kyle didn't move his bishop instead of his rook to block his opponents pawn from the 8th rank. Kyle moved the bishop and won the game a couple of moves later. We both thought it didn't matter which piece he moved, as long as he moved something there, but we didn't want to create an international incident. Well, at least not that early in the trip we didn't.

Lausanne Day 1 (or No Matter Where You Go, There You Are)

When we checked into our hotel, the Nash Carlton, they put us in two adjoining rooms and opened the door in between. European hotels seem to compete more on the luxuriousness of their furnishings and not so much on their amenities (or at least what an American would think of as an amenity) -- so we had a sumptuous room, but no coffee maker. Ice and soda machines, what are they?

OUR CAR IN FRONT OF OUR HOTEL

The bathrooms were quite modern -- the funWife and I had an all glass shower enclosure small enough that the Fruit of the Murphy Loins believed me when I told them that when I showered I just squirted soap on the glass walls and rotated to get clean. It was nice to have 2 full bathrooms for the 4 of us - half the squabbling in half the time to get ready in the morning, even if we weren't on any kind of schedule.

After unpacking and exploring the hotel, we set forth minus my daughter to find dinner. Since there are only two directions in Lausanne, uphill and downhill, we chose to try our luck downhill. Fortune favors the bold, and from some reason it decided to favor us as well since we quickly wound up in Ouchy at a pizza place on the lakefront. Well, almost on the lakefront, as the Chateau d'Ouchy was between us and the water.

THE CHATEAU D"OUCHY BLOCKING VIEW OF PIZZA JOINT

We ate pizza often on the trip, and each time it was customized to the local taste. They are not nearly as generous with their toppings in Europe as America (and cheese in the crust is right out), so a pepperoni pizza typically had six or seven pepperoni's on it. And if you wanted pepperoni, you ordered salami, as ordering anything like pepperoni would result in green and red peppers, not pepperoni. In Venice we would order a Viennese pizza and get sliced hot dog on top for our troubles. And not even all of the hot dog.

In Lausanne they speak French, so we were forced to puzzle out the ingredients with a half dozen years of high school French between the four of us. As soon as we got comfortable with ingredients in French, we moved on to Interlaken, where they speak German and we were forced to puzzle out the ingredients all over again -- and with zero years of high school German to help out. At least when we got to Venice the learning curve wasn't as steep because Italian is a lot more like French than German is. Maybe that's why we got cocky and wound up with hot dog on our pizza.

The Coop (or We're Not in Kansas Anymore)

As we drove around Lac Leman from Geneva to Lausanne, we marveled at the scenery: The deep blue lake dotted with sailboats surrounded by mountains. We didn't take any pictures, but we did get hungry. The further we went, the hungrier we got. So I picked an exit pretty much at random, and discovered something called Coop Mall, which was furnished with more empty parking spaces than Geneva and Lausanne combined. For free. (OK, that's the second free thing in Switzerland). With spaces big enough for American cars, which I appreciated even if I didn't need it in my rental Peugeot.

Luckily, not only was there a grocery store, but there was also a mini-mall upstairs complete with a Coop restaurant. The rejoicing was muted, however, by the unfamiliar fare, so while the adults got some sort of quiche or quiche like substance, the Fruit of the Murphy Loins went for pastry. They weren't going to ruin their first meal on foreign soil with something unfamiliar. We all had sugar drinks (the european description of soda) without ice, filled exactly to the 2 or 3 dl line, as the case may be. Then after a brief bout of shopping, we piled back into the car and headed on to Lausanne.

Geneva (or Being There)

The plan was to pick up the rental car, drive to the Museum of the History of Science, and then walk along the Geneva waterfront before heading on to our hotel in Lausanne. We figured on several hours of enjoyment and cultural enrichment. The best laid schemes of mice and men aft gang agley.

While the cars aren't too dissimilar, driving in Europe is a bit different than driving in the US. Road signage is different -- street names have pretty low priority in Europe so the signs are tiny blue things affixed to a side of a building in the vicinity of an intersection. Points of interest (like hotels), as well as autobahns, other towns, and the city center are prominently marked with large arrow signs indicating their direction. They also have a lot of roundabouts, which I found took a little getting used to. Were they do have stoplight controlled intersections, the lights are small and off to the near side of the intersection. I often had trouble telling them apart from the pedestrian lights, which were also small but on the far side of the intersection. The lane markings were confusing - white separates lanes going in opposite directions, yellow separates lanes going in the same direction. Thus my first drive was pretty exciting, not even mentioning the generally cramped feel -- narrow lanes, bus lanes, bike lanes -- and the pedestrians crossing virtually at will. It almost like they made driving so hard you'd want to take public transportation.

Through pluck, determination, and exquisite dead reckoning skills, we found roughly where we wanted to start our exploration of Geneva. Finding a parking space, however, was much harder, and about exhausted my pluck. I did finally find a spot a bit of a distance from the museum, but at least it was a straight shot there and I was perfectly positioned to get on the autobahn later. We got out of the car in shifts because I had to park right up against a hedge, and then we started the fun part of the vacation.

First we found the botanical garden. It seems to me that in Europe the first park in town they planted a flower no local had yet heard of they named a botanical garden. So after eyeing the crowded restaurant on the property with longing, it was off to less green pastures.

We quickly found the lake front, so we walked along it, admiring the view and perspiring heavily.

LAC LEMAN (LAKE GENEVA)

We did make it to the museum, which was several rooms in a big old mansion along the lakefront without air conditioning. Let me digress a bit and mention that it was unseasonably warm in Geneva -- in the mid 90's F -- so it was hot, even for this midwesterner. All over Switzerland are fountains that provide free drinking water, the only thing free we found there. Sadly, we had no cup or bottle to catch and hold the water, so we had to make do with cupped hands. Let me just say they are a poor substitute for a plastic bottle for drinking large quantities of water. So we purchased a bottle of water at the museum after a lengthy discussion in French and English as to whether or not the water in the bottle was cold. It was.

ATTRACTIVE MODEL DEMONSTRATES WATER FOUNTAIN, SWISS STYLE

Thus refreshed, upon leaving we discovered a black storm cloud and thunder, though it wasn't actually raining on us. Some say it was the jet lag, some say the heat, others claim it was the prospect of an immanent deluge, Jimmy Carter would have blamed a general malaise, but whatever the reason, we opted to break off our exploration of Geneva hours early and barely started and instead go to the hotel in Lausanne without further sightseeing. So we went back past the public beach and a couple of topless sunbathers to the car. Then it was on to the autobahn, clearly marked by a green picnic table sign, and out of Geneva and on towards Lausanne.

Flying To Europe (or Getting There)

If a journey of a thousand steps begins with the first one, our journey of six plane flights, several train rides, many car rides, and lots and lots of steps began with a flight on American Airlines to Chicago. It was, of course, delayed, and we didn't have much time to catch our next flight which was to London. While waiting to board in St. Louis, the gate agent kept stressing how we would just board quickly and everything would turn out fine. But when it came time to board, we did it in the same slow motion style that every plane is boarded with. The single point failure repeated until eveyone is at long last seated -- an aviation reminder of the fatal flaw in Market-Garden. So we went from making the connecting flight, no problem according to the gate agent to there are 14 passengers on the same flight so they probably will hold the plane according to the stewardess.

The connecting flight information read by the stewardess as we were landing had our flight already departed for dear old England and we would have to go to the ticketing desk for another flight. I thought to myself, great, the wheels have already come off before the wagon has even begun to roll. But when we taxied into the gate, we could see a plane at the gate our flight to London had supposedly left from. Were we so late that another plane was already using our gate?

When we deplaned, the gate agent informed us that our eyes weren't lying, the flight had been held. So we dashed (after I paid a brief visit to the men's room) through O'Hare -- all the way back into the main part and then back out another concourse. The lady with lots of kids and even more carryon made it with a beet red face. An older couple came strolling up long after we arrived -- I guess they figured as long as they were holding the plane, why rush.

Then it was off the London on a 777. The in-flight entertainment system was really neat. Everybody had their own little screen in the back of the seat in front of them and headphones. My favorite part was the flight info section that showed our progress on maps of varying scales along with information like ground speed, altitude, and outside air temperature. I was amazed by how long we flew through cloud tops (and their chop) -- hour after hour at a ground speed of 600 mph. As near as I could tell, there were clouds all the way from St. Louis to London.

Heathrow looks like a relic from the early industrial era. Long hallways that twist and turn and lead ever onward without exit or bathroom (WC in Europspeak -- which I took to calling "The Claude" as WC was pronounced like "Debussy" there). We had to switch from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 and after taking a bus to Terminal 4 we had to stand in what has to be the longest line I've ever been in to go back through security. It stretched halfway on to forever, and when you got there, it turned a corner and stretched the rest of the way to forever before turning again into a room that opened out into the security checkpoint. And this was before the new security requirements that are causing even longer lines (I imagine they now stretch to forever and back).

When we finally emerged in the brand spanking new gate area, my daughter exclaimed this was a mall, not an airport. Unfortunately, our flight to Geneva had no gate listed on the flight info screens, so we trudged back to the check-in we had bypassed because I had printed out our boarding passes for British Airways just before we left home. We were unofficially told that the flight was delayed (thus giving us the late trifecta) but that it would leave from gate 19 sometime in the future. So 45 minutes late we began to board for a 90 minute flight to Geneva. At least we were only connecting with a rental car at this point so a delay just didn't matter.

Over 9 hours in the air and a day later on the calendar we had at last arrived. While Geneva's airport was much more modern than Heathrow, it also featured the interminable corridor to civilization - although there was a Claude halfway there, unlike Heathrow where you had to make it all the way to the end before you could get relief. But none of that mattered as we had gotten the worst part of travel, namely the travel, over with. Hurrah!

Advice from Ads

I found wisdom in the ads, or at least advice I should heed...
a tagline from an Accenture ad series

It’s not how many ideas you have.
It’s how many you make happen.

The list of remarks you should "Keep on Walking" past according to Johnnie Walker:

• It Will Never Fly.
• If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It.
• Don't Ruffle Feathers.
• The Climate Isn't Right.
• You'll Never Get Funding.
• This Isn't Even Your Department.
• You'll Get Laughed Out Of The Room.
• That's Too Risky.
• Don't Step On Any Toes.

Two closing thoughts at opposite ends of the spectrum from Orwell and McLuhan:

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket."
George Orwell

"Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century."
Marshall McLuhan

Vacation Almost Collides With Terror Plot

I just returned from Europe yesterday, so thank you, Great Britain. We sure picked the right day to return home -- only turbulence to contend with.

The Murphy family spent a couple of weeks there, and we flew through Heathrow on our way over to Switzerland. We flew through Brussels on our way back. Security in Brussels was really tight -- flights to America were from one end of a terminal which was blocked off and had extra security - as I told my daughter, I've had less intrusive medical exams than that security screening. We were split into two groups, with my wife and son go through together, and my daughter and I together. My bottle of Pepto-Bismol (never leave home without it) was in my son's backpack, and boy were they interested in it. Now I know why since the terrorists were planing to use liquid explosives.

Digital Film Projection...In Somalia

August 4, 2006: [...] There are hundreds of impromptu theaters in Somalia, where entrepreneurs use digital projectors, powered by a portable generator, to project DVDs or electronic film files (often taken from pirated collections found on the Internet) onto the inside, or outside, walls of buildings. A small admission is paid, thus providing entertainment for many Somalis. [...]
(see http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/somalia/articles/20060809.aspx)

It seems to me that this could also be a model for developing world education, and perhaps a model for how to disseminate information after natural disasters (at least those that leave a wall standing). Digital video cameras would allow current events to be easily captured and disseminated--instead of relying on pirated content off the Internet--you would just need some "out of region" file servers and at lest intermittent Internet connectivity.

The entry was part of a larger piece (buried in those ellipses) on how the Islamic Courts (the name of one of the ruling factions) is trying to censor "non-Islamic" content and tax the "theatres" which, being something of a moveable feast, I would suspect are to assess taxes against or censor.

One of the reasons it caught my eye is that I attended a July 27 Churchill Club event on The Future of Movies that was billed as "a digital age cinema executive roundtable." It was a good talk, and the Hollywood execs were extremely intelligent and articulate. One of the key barriers to digital film adoption seems to be that exhibitors bear the expense of new digital film projectors while most of the benefits of moving from film to electrons will accrue to other parts of the industry. This isn't true for the smaller scale Somali "exhibitors" who can probably make do with LCD projectors that are just a few hundred dollars and don't have any existing infrastructure).

It's worth listening to the podcast and adding Scott Kirsner's CinemaTech blog to your list if digital cinema or movie technology is of interest. He did an excellent job preparing the panelists and moderating. Rich Karlgaard also has a good write-up.

Five Quotes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Inspired by Merlin Mann's 5ives I am posting my quotes in batches of five. I recently lost several hours perusing the quotes pages from The Chronicles of Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle and have selected these as among his best.

"It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Reigate Puzzle"

"Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old lovers are the worst."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Gloria Scott"

"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Hound of the Baskervilles"

"His face is of a walnut brown, and tells of long winter drives over bleak country roads, with the wind and the rain in his teeth. It looks smooth at a little distance, but as you approach him you see that it is shot with innumerable fine wrinkles like a last year's apple. They are hardly to be seen when he is in repose; but when he laughs his face breaks like a starred glass, and you realize then that though he looks old, he must be older than he looks."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Behind the Times"

"I am that most helpless of living creatures, the son of a millionaire."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Sealed Room"

Hitting 30h

I have decided to start counting my age in hexadecimal with this birthday, recycling Jack Benny's "celebrating my 39th birthday for the nth time" just didn't cut it this year. It also allowed me to give my boys a brief (at least from my perspective) explanation of the differences between base 10, binary, and hexadecimal number systems. Mark was nonplussed to remain 9 but Max thought 0Ch might be a good year for him.

Lately I try and bear in mind Wynton Marsalis' observation that "the humble improve." As for career plans, math and science tend to be kinder to younger men (with George Polya offering a convincing counterexample, authoring a seminal paper that contained his "Enumeration Theorem" at 32h in 1937). Writing is a career you can begin in your forties late twenties-h and still meet with some satisfaction, if not success. Raymond Chandler (a year younger than Polya) didn't write the Big Sleep until he was 31h, so he is a better model for me in the old age of my youth.

Beyond Band of Brothers

subtitled "The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters," Beyond Band of Brothers is Maj. Winters' perspective on events chronicled by Stephen Ambrose in Band of Brothers. It's an easy and quick read but one that further impressed me with Winters as a person.

He offers ten principles for success for small unit leader "Leadership at the Point of a Bayonet"

1. Strive to be a leader of character, competence, and courage.
2. Lead from the front. Say, "Follow me!" and then lead the way.
3. Stay in top physical shape--physical stamina is the root of mental toughness.
4. Develop your team. If you know your people, are fair in setting realistic goals and expectations, and lead by example, you will develop teamwork.
5. Delegate responsibility to your subordinates and let them do their jobs. You can't do a good job if you don't have a chance to use your imagination or your creativity.
6. Anticipate problems and prepare to overcome obstacles. Don't wait until you get to the top of the ridge and then make up your mind.
7. Remain humble. Don't worry about who receives the credit. Never let power or authority go to your head.
8. Take a moment of self-reflection. Look at yourself in the mirror every night and ask yourself if you did your best.
9. True satisfaction comes from getting the job done. The key to a successful leader is to earn respect--not because of rank or position, but because you are a leader of character.
10. Hang Tough! - Never, ever, give up.

It's a quick read but an amazing autobiography for what he and his unit accomplished. His principles are useful because they are the ones to focus on if you can remain "cool under fire." As Rudyard Kipling noted, that can be a big IF...