Brass in the Pocket

My brother the cop returned from the firing range, where he and his colleagues had undergone firearms training using new techniques. It was good, he said, to have their thinking periodically challenged. Qualifying by firing at paper targets from a stationary position, with no one shooting back, made it easy to fall into a routine. To forget what you were really trying to do out there — that it's about survival, not marksmanship.

The new training, he explained, did more to simulate stressful situations where the officers would be under fire, requiring them to move and make decisions on the fly. (As someone once said, if you really want to practice for an actual shoot-out, first, poop in your pants.)

Back in 1970, a tragic shoot-out involving two bad guys and four California Highway Patrolmen helped change how officers are trained to deal with dangerous situations. Reconstruction of the incident in which the CHiPs were overpowered revealed that some officers had paused to fully reload. The brass from their expended cartridges was found in their pockets — a repetition of what they did on the firing range, so the range master didn't have to clean up the empties at the end of the day.

Under stress, the men had reenacted what they'd practiced — good range etiquette.

Most of us will never have to perform in such a life-and-death situation. We should respect those who are called upon to defend us, and be careful to presume how people will act under extreme pressure. And I wonder in my own life, what habits am I grooving that could come back to bite me when I act reflexively?

Where is the brass in my pocket?

Wuhan Walking

They heard the sonnet. This was something few American students could do, at least in my experience... The Chinese had spent years deliberately and diligently destroying every valuable aspect of their traditional culture, and yet with regard to enjoying poetry Americans had arguably done a much better job of finishing ours off. How many Americans could recite a poem or identify its rhythm?
—Peter Hessler, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze

We get off the boat and head briskly left past the drivers hosing down their buses, instead of taking a right to the waterfront bonsai market. The wide thoroughfare is no good for walking and the banks and other institutional buildings are no good for sightseeing, so we bear east toward a promising clock tower. From there, a broad, stone-paved street radiates south through the heart of the city, and we take it.

It's Sunday morning, but people are out in force. The stylish shops are opening, gates half rolled up, lights coming on inside. Music plays loudly from tinny boombox speakers as groups of women dance in unison or perform tai chi with fans or swords. Sleepy teens fish their breakfast from cartons before starting work. Pedestrians have to themselves the full width of the street, which could have been in Amsterdam or Sienna.

A graceful wrought iron stairway crosses a busy intersection. At the top, a thin old man in a grey suit stares trance-like as he repeatedly rubs his palms from forehead crown. Presses into his cheekbones, working tiny circles just where the curve falls off under the eye sockets, then moves to the bridge of his nose. Pinches earlobes between thumb and forefinger and works them for awhile before massaging the rest of his ears, and then burrowing in. It's like watching a man take a bath and tiger pacing a cage all in one.

To my western eyes, he seems shell shocked, perhaps a victim of the Cultural Revolution, publicly going through an obsessive routine. But I am repeating some of his moves now as I recall the scene, and it seems possible he may have been meditating and practicing self-massage as part of his morning ritual.

Twice, we step over pavement where an elderly person is painting calligraphy in water with a long, mop-like brush, one character per stone. Later we learned these were classical poems, and the act a form of mental and physical exercise.

The shopping street eventually returns to moving traffic, so we turn up a narrower side street, lined with the typical owner-occupied shops. Why is there a line waiting for won ton at this shop, when so many others nearby offer quicker fare. The men sitting there on the sidewalk all have small hand saws. Not some with hammers, others with paint brushes. Are they waiting for work?

I stop in a school supply store, looking for funky Chinese pencils. A girl about 10 follows me, demonstrating products as I move along the shelves. She carefully clicks a dozen binary switches to show me how they lock a pink diary. I have to buy something, so I pick up a journal that is more subdued than the Hello Kitty inventory.

On the way back, I see gathering knots young people in orange t-shirts and sashes that look vaguely political. Off to the side, two older men also wearing orange shirts confer. They have whistles around their necks like referees. One young man with spiky hair hands cards to selected passersby. (I am not selected, though, I realize, I am wearing an orange t-shirt.) The man in the grey suit is gone. The poems have evaporated.

Back near the boat, some vendors are laying out their wares on blankets at the entrance to the bonsai market. I have 20 minutes before departure, so I decide to make a quick foray. There's a lot of the usual junk, but then a reddish chop with a beast carved in the top catches my eye. It has a nice heft and appears to be an original. I make an offer, which causes the woman seller to snort and bug her eyes out. Since the boat will soon leave, I don't have to pretend. I start to walk away.

Okay, okay, she says, and as she wraps it, she thrusts another chop toward me. I laugh and make a gesture of refusal. I'd looked at this one, but have the one I want. She writes down her price. I strike it out and offer one-third as I walk away. Okay, okay. She presses small carved cube in my hand. No, no, I am laughing. I have to go. She hands me the paper and pen. I write down a ridiculous price, about $2.50. She doesn't even counter. Okay, okay.

Later, the boat's resident culture expert says inscritpions indicate the second chop has used by a general in Beijing some 80 years ago, and the first, about the same age, may have been used for an intellectual's books and writings. The actual characters on the chops are too old for him to read.

But by now it doesn't matter. This is the day I will remember, long after my words evaporate.

Born Born-Again?

When my pen pal Dr. Rick Scarborough isn't busy defending families of faith against activist judges, he's defending them against homosexuality:

As readers of this report know, September 15, 2005 was a black day for the pro-family movement. For the first time, the House of Representatives voted in favor of making homosexuals a protected class for civil-rights purposes.

The measure (an amendment to a popular bill to increase penalties for pedophiles) would make those who attack homosexuals (motivated by an aversion to their lifestyle) subject to federal prosecution and a harsher penalty than would be the case for victims who didn't qualify for protected status.

Currently, the federal hate-crimes law covers race, ethnicity and religion. If the disastrous amendment is enacted into law, those whose sole distinguishing characteristic is sexual behavior would be added to the mix...

Contact your Senators and tell them that individuals are born black, Hispanic and Jewish — but they are not born homosexual. Express your opposition to homosexuals being included in federal hate crimes law. For Christian conservatives, this is a make or break issue.

Excusing Dr. Rick's willful ignorance about homosexuality and accepting his criterion that you should be born a certain way to merit hate crimes protection, where does that put religion as a protected category — since born-again Christians aren't born born-again?

Mao Watch

For any pack of Anglos traveling in China, some things are impossible to avoid. Street vendors, for example. (Lord of War is already out in DVD.)

And Mao.

Mao has been dead for nearly 30 years, but he is omnipresent. In a fading portrait of the young revolutionary at the porcelain factory. As the man in full overseeing Tienanmen Square. In a visage staring back at every citizen who handles currency in any denomination.

This is the Reaganite wet dream come to complete fruition.

But Mao is also a comic lord, a patron saint of the new "market economy," which is Chinese for screw all the oppression of the past 50 years and the whores it rode in on.

Mao included.

The Mao index is a refreshing, or at least revealing, measure of how economic reforms are affecting China. Mao is not simply a political icon. He is the ultimate dead celebrity icon — the Mona Lisa, Einstein, George Washington and Marilyn Monroe rolled into one.

He is for sale on rucksacks, medals (real or reproduced), stamps, t-shirts, the little red book, with helpful English translation, and the ubiquitous Mao Watch.

Forget bogus Rolexes; the Mao watch is the souvenir you want. I picked up two for $6.00. One is still running, and the other can be coaxed back to life. It's just hard to get used to winding a watch, especially one you think you might break. (Needs no battery, if you want to look on the bright side.) Versions of these are available in states, starting at $1.00 on eBay — plus $16.00 shipping & handling — but don't have the same cachet as one brought back from the Forbidden City ( shipping & handling may be higher).

I could be wrong, but I didn't read this as a hero worship. More like the ultimate exorcism. What better way to be rid of a monster — a new biography argues for monsterhood — than to exploit him commercially?

China, the Postcard Version

I have resisted mightily passing myself off as an authority on China after spending only two weeks there, mostly in the company of people dedicated to making sure I had a good time. Nevertheless, this is the Blogosphere, not Foreign Affairs, and I have honed my responses after one steady week of conversations that start out, "how was China?"

There are many directions the conversation goes from there. To food — not at all disgusting, surprising variety, little rice, and many delights. To bicycles in Beijing — not as many as in the old newsreels running in your head, and a lot more cars. To safety — yes, we felt quite safe. To pollution and health — not horrible, not as bad as expected, but far short of what we'd consider acceptable here. To language — not as dislocating as you might think; lots of people who can speak some English, at least enough to conduct a transaction. And to the people — really wonderful; proving once more we should never undertake war with people we haven't met. Trip of a lifetime? Depends.

Scotland. Could go back again and again, but would never want to live there.
Mexico. Good memories and that's good enough.
Italy. Loved what it did to my state of mind, and could see the appeal of retiring there, but would never want to work there.
New Zealand. Christchurch was the only place I've ever looked at real estate ads. But I've already lived through the 1950's once, and that's enough.
China. My eyes and heart were opened to the Chinese people. Every American should visit there, especially while it is still China.

2,000 and Counting

When armies begin to move and flags wave and slogans pop up watch out little guy because it's somebody else's chestnuts in the fire not yours. It's words you're fighting for and you're not making an honest deal your life for something better. You're being noble and after you're killed the thing you traded your life for won't do you any good and chances are it won't do anybody else any good either.
—Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun

Getting back to books was one sweet consequence of freeing myself from the momentary distractions of current affairs. On the 13-hour flight to Shanghai, I started with Dalton Trumbo's 1939 National Book Award-winning novel, and gulped it down.

Find this book and read it.

The story of a horribly maimed WW I soldier — sightless, deaf, faceless and limbless — was published in 1939, just two days after the start of WW II. As the U.S. entered the conflict, Johnny went out of print, and even Trumbo agreed that was not a bad thing, since the book had become embraced by extreme right wing isolationists who wanted a quick peace with the Nazis. Once the war ended, the book was reprinted, but didn't catch on again, and by Korea was again out of print.

Taken simply as a novel, it is far too good to be lost. As a commentary on romanticized patriotism and its follies, it is essential for the times.

The protagonist, Joe Bonham, speaks for war's dead.

You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life. They're plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress. That's their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead.

Hmmmm.

But what do the dead say?

Did anybody ever come back from the dead any single one of the millions who got killed did any one of them ever come back and say by god I'm glad I'm dead because death is always better than dishonor? Did they say I'm glad I died to make the world safe for democracy? Did they say I like death better than losing liberty? Did any of them ever say it's good to think I got my guts blown out for the honor of my country? Did any of them ever say look at me I'm dead but I died for decency and that's better than being alive? Did any of them ever say here I am I've been rotting for two years in a foreign grave but it's wonderful to to die for your native land? Did any of them say hurray I died for womanhood and I'm happy to see how I sing even though my mouth is choked with worms?

Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not. And the dead can't talk. So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead. If a man says death before dishonor he is either a fool or a liar because he doesn't know what death it. He isn't able to judge. He only knows about living.

As I post this, the U.S. casualties in Iraq are likely to have pushed beyond the 2,000 mark. For the sake of them and all soldiers, Trumbo asks through "the nearest thing to a dead man on earth":

How did they feel as they watched their blood pump out into the mud? How did they feel when the gas hit their lungs and began eating them all away? How did they feel as they lay crazed in hospitals and looked death straight in the face and saw him come and take them? If the thing they were fighting for was important enough to die for then it was also important enough for them to be thinking about it in the last minutes of their lives. That stood to reason. Life is awfully important so if you've given it away you'd ought to think with all your mind in the last moments of your life about the thing you traded it for. So did all those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and stripes forever?

You're goddam right they didn't.

They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were fighting for the things they were dying for. They thought about things a man can understand. They died yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife a child. They died with their hearts sick for one more look at the place where they were born please god just one more look. They died moaning and sighing for life. They knew what was important. They knew that life was everything and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thought in their minds and that was I want to live I want to live I want to live.

Blissful Ignorance

Like a fat man lowering himself into a hot tub, I am immersing myself slowly back into the news-intensive existence I left behind for two-plus weeks. Don't want to shock the system.

The day we started our trip to China, Delay's indictment and Bush's Supreme Court nomination were on the airport monitors. It was the last bit of news I would deliberately consume until my return. No email or surfing. No newspapers or TV. No phone calls. And little chance of stumbling across stray bulletins, isolated by distance, language and a river boat continually pushing upstream through lands where farmers worked as they did centuries ago.

Instead of keeping up with current affairs, I turned my attention to the swirl of the river, the line of the mountains, the variety of Chinese faces. Instead of capturing these things in photos, I practiced seeing them, sketching roughly as they passed. Instead of grazing on the blogosphere's instant outrage, I dug into products of deeper reflection, called books.

Only four bits of U.S. news and world reports penetrated this pleasant, peasant-like consciousness, during a brief exposure to CNN Asia. New York City issued a terror alert related to a potential subway attack. Mexico suffered severe flooding. An earthquake hit Pakistan. And Boy George was arrested for cocaine possession.

Guess which story got the most air time?

I figure if this was all that got through, the world was not about to end in my absence. Pat Robertson had not yet ascended into heaven and Tom Delay had not yet descended into hell. At least all the way.

Now I'm back wasting my time checking out things like the Rapture Index:

You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.

Oh, bliss!

Is There a Nobel for Acting?

Flying back from China and seeing that Harold Pinter won the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature, I was reminded that more than 50 years ago the winner was Winston Churchill. Maybe all Nobel Laureates aren't equally deserving, but it's unimaginable that any current politician could aspire to win the literature prize. In fact, it's difficult to imagine politicians of any magnitude writing anything of beauty or consequence ever again.

I should be un-jet-lagged in a day or so. Meanwhile, thanks so much to Gus and Lars for keeping the kettle boiling. It was great fun to open their presents yesterday.

Parallel Worlds

Just when I start thinking I'm a relatively worldly guy, I get my cultural wires crossed. As I was leaving Colorado, I discovered I'd missed the Gateway Fire Department Dynamite Shoot. For the last 40 years, they've been shooting at small targets packed with explosives (these days, pop cans). You can hit the link for the details.

Then, in a more upscale publication, I discover watch winders. For those proud owners who have more ostentatious watches than wrists, they can park them in a watch winder and not have to worry about keeping them wound.

"All of a sudden, it seems, there are a lot of watch winders on the market," the print ad intones.

Yes! That's exactly what I've been thinking. But oh, how to choose?

For only $395, you can pick up a starter module, or for the really acquisitive collector, you can buy The Fifty.

I think I'll remember this next time someone tries to tell me we're all basically the same deep down.

China-Bound

Tomorrow morning, I depart for two weeks in China. The laptop will stay home as we journey down the Yangtze River, and I'll rely on a journal to feed future posts.

To keep the kettle boiling, I've asked two writers (and non-bloggers) to contribute here while I'm gone. Lars Ostrom and Gus Axelson have both labored in my vineyards but have long since grown into their own. Lars and I both hail from the west, went to the same college, play music, and get grouchy about similar things. Gus edits a conservation-oriented publication and ventures places where I'd spend more time if I didn't love cities so much.

Gus and Lars. Thank god my name isn't Einar, or you'd start to get the wrong idea.

I've asked them to keep this place interesting over the next several weeks, and I'll be interested as anyone to see how it turns out.