WhirledView

To Touch or Not to Touch

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

I touched a man last week. A strange young man, no less. He’d asked a good question after a lecture.   I delivered my compliment while laying my hand on a jacketed shoulder, after which I went into apology mode: “Sorry,"  I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, “but I can’t do it to you.”

My response? “Yes, you can.”  When I’ve done a great job, definitely give me a pat on the shoulder.  Or even a (not too hard) slap on the back.

And when mixed-gender teammates or committee members celebrate an unexpected victory, let them link arms in solidarity! What’s more natural?  Go, team!  Let them do a little cancan, too.

But, all you scumbags at a social event, don’t insinuate your arm around my waist or play kneesies under the table or stare pop-eyed at my chest when I’m trying to talk to you, although I usually minimize the latter by minimizing cleavage, the result of an amusing experiment I devised a few years ago. I baited the hook with a yumyum plunging neckline. Suddenly guys who’d ignored me before were buying me drinks. It was a hoot! It was also very boring.

Wolf whistles never frightened or flattered me, and it didn’t take me long to understand that the merest hint of a loutish ogle is nothing but diminishment. The so-called compliment that interrupts a job review, for example. What a beautiful smile you have! Such gorgeous blue eyes! Under that shower of sweet irrelevancies, I sensed immediately that I was no longer a hot prospect for a well paid professional position. I was bed bait, a one dimensional sex object. Did I call out the interviewer? Not then. But I would today.

The distance between leering and the look of love needs light years for measurement.

A hug is not a hug either. Take the exuberant bear hug of long lost friends. See the eyes lit up!  Hear the exuberant cries! This embrace bears absolutely no relation to the repellent office power grab that lasts too long and has the woman wondering how on earth she’ll escape without creating a scene—or losing a job. The hot flab under the suit! The sandpaper jowls! The beard tickle. Ugh!

There’s an easy solution to the abusive hug scenario. Men, for the most part, shake hands in public. Let’s jettison the air kisses for professional women at business meetings. Ditto the all-encompassing arm wrap from male acquaintances encountered at a party.   Trust to a warm firm handshake lit up by a delighted-to-see-or-meet-you smile.

Still, there are plenty of moments that demand physical closeness. When the need’s for comfort and a shoulder to cry on, who worries about male or female? And what kind of idiot rebuffs a gentle, consoling pat on the hand that comes from the “wrong” sex? All of us need generous doses of physical closeness, and anyone with a functioning brain knows the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touching. So let’s not go overboard. Let’s not repel the intimacy we need in the course of insulating ourselves from predation.

Males especially need to face the fact that, for lo! these eons of impunity, they have pretended not to notice their colleagues’ abusive behavior. Defying the wolf pack may be tough on those who like being one of the boys, but it’s time for men to speak out. Hey, bro, that’s not the way to go!

As for those still addicted to grabbing pussy and pinching bottoms, the days when the hottie could be trusted to grin-and-bear-it are coming to an end. Expect to see hands slapped away. Expect audible protests. Expect targets to be increasingly immune to character assassination. Expect lost jobs and stained reputations. Not the lady’s.

I once got painfully pinched during a festival in Lahore, Pakistan. Almost automatically, I turned, protested in Urdu and punched the jerk,  striking a blow not only for myself, but for all Western women in Pakistan: we were universally disrespected as “loose.” After that came a moment of terror. The other men in the crowd—how would they behave?

Like gentlemen, as it turned out. They apologized to me. They turned on my molester.

Would I have received the same sympathy from American men? More likely, I’d have been advised to suck it up. Or, worse, been told to take it as a compliment.

Meanwhile, according to Vice President Pence and others of his religious ilk, the solution to the problem of sexual harassment and abuse at work is to segregate men from women, whether to prevent women from being mauled and or—the real motive, I suspect—to protect men from “false” charges. That system might work for the beneficiaries of patriarchy, but it would cripple the ability of women to compete in a “man’s world.”

What’s to be done? For the time being, since too many males in our society have been raised to manhandle any female they can get their paws on, there’s safety in numbers. Public shaming. Public blaming. Above all, swelling the “me-too,” chorus. Bill Clinton toughed it out. Donald Trump became President. Roy Moore may or may not win his election, but he will never be sworn into the Senate. That’s progress.

How English Keeps India Together

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Given his complex parentage (Indian Sikh and Pakistani Muslim) and his own career as a writer in English, both fiction and non-fiction, the latter for British or American publications, it’s hard to understand how Aatish Taseer could have written “How English Ruined Indian Literature,” which appeared as an oped in this Sunday’s New York Times.  It’s also hard to understand how the Times could have published this ignorant rant, which shows Taseer to be totally oblivious to the complexity of language politics  in India.  Taseer, of all people, even seems to be in thrall to Hindu-nationalist Narendra Modi.  He was captivated by Modi’s U.N. speech, for instance, and now he’s joining the chorus of Modi followers who wish to impose Hindi as the sole national language of the entire country.  These, by the way, are the same people who want to reclaim the country for Hindus alone, odd company for a man of his parentage.  

Although Taseer has obviously been exposed to the highest standards of journalism, his lopsided presentation of the issue emerges with perfect clarity when he centers his piece around the thoughts of a Hindi-speaking boatman in Varanasi, a man who is unlikely to be a consumer of literature in any language.  He more briefly tells of two students from Benares Hindu University, one embittered because his “pure and beautiful Hindi” wouldn’t qualify him for a top position in today’s India, the other pragmatically ready to grasp whatever advantage his not-so-hot English will gain him.  What these vignettes prove, so far as I can see, is this: choosing a culturally narrow curriculum isn’t going to propel anyone to the top of the heap in a country with 14 or more major languages, which is probably a good thing, though Taseer clearly doesn't think so.

Taseer also cites a failed aspirant to stardom in Hindi-language Bollywood, unbelievably only because he wasn’t fluent in English (is he, Taseer’s friend, really such a terrific actor?) and the sentimental maunderings of V.S. Naipal, a London-based cosmopolitan born in Trinidad to Indian parents who’d been imported to the Caribbean to work the sugar industry.  Hardly a convincing array of testimony in support of a Hindi-Only policy in India.   Oh yes, Taseer also quotes a 19th century Russian writer who feared the influence of western European civilization. How little has changed in Russia since then.  So much for insular nationalism.

Meanwhile, Taseer fails to mention a word of support from any prominent Indian literary scholar or critic.  Also, oddly enough, he hasn't marshaled quotes from disgruntled major fiction writers in any Indian language to bolster his contention that English is ruining Indian literature. 

Above all, and this is the crux of my argument, Taseer does not cite a single South Indian source in favor of eliminating the use of  English in India.  This oversight (or intentional bias)  reveals the crushing weakness of his argument.  Unlike Hindi, the South Indian languages do not spring from Sanskrit.  They belong to an entirely unrelated language family.  What’s more, even in North India, the Bengalis have no particular love for Hindi, to which their own much beloved  language is related.  Hindi, to hundreds of millions of Indians, is a foreign language.  If it became the sole national language, non-Hindi speakers and their children would be severely disadvantaged in seeking out-of-state jobs and education.  However, so long as all ambitious Indians must be able to handle English effectively, the playing ground is level for the entire population.  It may be a tough hurdle, it may be an odd hurdle that has its origin in the colonial past, but it’s the same hurdle for everyone. 

This is not a small thing—and this is why English has survived in India.  It helps to glue the country together

It Works! The Fulbright Program Deserves More Support, Not Less

 By Patricia Lee Sharpe 

Approximately 325,400 intellectual leaders or leaders-in-the-making—122,800 from the United States, 202,600 from other countries—have participated in the Fulbright  Program since its inception in 1946.  The founding idea was that greater international understanding might help to prevent world wars like those that disfigured the first half of the 20th century, and maybe it has, though civil wars are still a serious problem.  Nevertheless, international understanding is the universal lubricant for the complex machinery of global interaction.  Blind ethnocentricity is increasingly a losing game.

Today the Fulbright Program is active in over 155 countries and awards about 8,000 grants annually.  Congress supported the program with  $242.8 million in FY 2013.  Some $80 million more comes through binational commissions or foundations in countries that share the Fulbright vision and have the resources to contribute.

A willingness to share costs! 

If that’s not proof of success, what is?  Clearly Congress should ignore any shortsighted suggestions to cut back on U.S. support for this universally applauded program.  What’s more, however viewed, whether as a part of the entire national  budget, as part of the national security budget or as part of the State Department budget, the Fulbright  program costs a pittance compared to the gratitude and respect it earns for the U.S. around the globe. 

America isn’t getting much of either these days.  Not much gratitude.  Not much respect.  We should treasure a program that everyone loves us for. 

Win-Win Educational Exchanges

Fulbright  grants insert U.S. teachers into the faculties of foreign institutions, exposing many thousands of foreign students to instructors who are American (and model American values) even if they aren’t teaching American studies as such.  Other American grantees do research around the globe, thus acquiring or strengthening the degrees or other certifications by which they can qualify as area studies professors at American colleges and universities.  Unexposed to such expertise, Americans might find it more difficult to wrap their minds around global issues,  and an ill-informed citizenry isn’t likely to understand or support a wise foreign policy.  Meanwhile, foreign grantees absorb American culture along with specialized training in the U.S.

Another plus: ex-Fulbrighters often land in the  recruiting pool for American national security agencies, all of  whose personnel need to understand other cultures if our foreign policy is to be soundly formulated and applied.  The latter process is facilitated if there are people in other countries, Fulbright alumni, for example, who know and sympathize with the U.S.  

Last but hardly least,  a truth we should never forget when we're seized by our recurrent anti-intellectual spasms: American leadership in the world depends very much on its intellectual leadership and the ability to deploy that expertise in world fora.  In this category the Fulbright program excels.

An Untarnished Reputation

And here’s the real magic: yes, the Fulbright program has served America well, but no one has ever been able to discredit the Fulbright program with the ugly label:  propaganda.  It’s intellectual integrity has survived for sixty years.   So where’s the downside of this program?

In short, with the world in the throes of chaos and major change, this is no time to withdraw serious support to a successful academic program.

So why (except for inertia) aren’t American beneficiaries, those tens of thousands of individuals, those colleges and universities and think tanks, why aren’t they all joining together to put more audible public pressure on Congress?  Why aren’t they shouting from the rooftoops, why aren’t they using every possible electronic medium, why aren’t they flocking with flags and banners to Congressional offices? Individuals have jobs they’d never have snagged if it weren’t for the benefits of a Fulbright experience.  Universities wouldn’t have been able to enrich their offerings with superb area studies programs conducted by first rate professors.   And this, too: American foreign affairs agencies would have had far fewer well-trained people to recruit.

Fulbright to Foreign Service

I’m one of those recruits, by the way.  When I speak in support of the Fulbright program,  I speak from long experience among grantees and administrators. 

I first went abroad as the young wife of a Fulbright student researching his Ph.D. dissertation in India.  During those two years I learned Hindi by sitting in on my husband’s Fulbright-funded language lessons and and learned it well enough to publish translations of Hindi short stories.  My second Fulbright experience was as the wife of a Fulbright professor in India, but my third was quite different.  While my husband was a Fulbright researcher looking into aspects of Pakistani politics, I was a Fulbright lecturer in American Literature at Lahore University in Pakistan.  Evidence of effectiveness: one of my Pakistani students earned a Ph.D in American literature and became a professor of same.  As for my ex-husband, the book form of his dissertation on the Indian National Congress is still in print.  He taught hundreds of American students about South Asia and maintained life long connections with South Asian colleagues—and his story is far from unique.  

Had it not been for my Fulbright experience in Pakistan, I’d never have joined the U.S. Foreign service.  As a U.S.I.S. cultural affairs officer or as branch or full public affairs officer, I oversaw the administration of the Fulbright process abroad.  Working with local leaders and institutions in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sierra Leone and the Dominican Republic, I sought the best and brightest and sent them to the U.S. for appropriate academic programs.  Coming home, these grantees became ambassadors for American higher education and also for bedrock American values such as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights.  Meanwhile, I worked to place well-prepared American Fulbrighters with local universities or other institutions for teaching or research.  With a very few exceptions, mostly due to rigidity on one side or the other, Fulbright pairings were productive for all parties.  And, thanks to the prestige of the Fulbright program,  my own list of valuable contacts grew longer and longer in every country.  

Bottom Line

Am I indulging in nostalgia or hyperbole?  Not at all.  Short term.  Long term.  The Fulbright program is one of the best investments the U.S. has ever  made—and, with the U.S. confronting so many complex international crises, this is no time to underfund it.

Fulbright, International Exchanges and the Annual Budget Wars

Sound the alarm.  Call the troops to the battlefield of the annual budget wars currently underway in Washington. Here’s just one example: a poignant but less than fully historically accurate plea by a journalist on the program’s behalf. This year the venerable Fulbright program for academics and scholars is under threat of a 13% cut from Congress.  How can such a dramatic reduction be endured?

Chances are good that there will be a reduction of funds for the program but not by 13 percent because, you see, the Fulbright program benefits American scholars and students as well as foreign ones. American Fulbright alumni, their universities, the Board of Foreign Scholarships, the overseas Commissions, and IIE, the agency that operates the program under contract to the State Department here in the US, are being summoned to sound the clarion call to lobby Congress on the program’s behalf. 

The Key to Roll-Back

This US government supported program is one of the few international exchanges of people with dedicated and appreciative American alumni who can be reliably called upon to defend it before Congress time and time again. They are articulate, involved and concerned citizens. They also vote.

Yet a 13% cut, is not draconian – despite what its staunch program defenders argue.  The program has suffered far worse cuts in the past and survived – including a reduction of 28% in FY 1996 – after the US had decided that history had ended, it didn’t need to engage publics abroad, educate its own citizens about the world beyond its borders, or even have an agency that effectively administered US information and cultural programs overseas.

I remember it too well because I was Branch Chief for European Academic Exchanges in the then US Information Agency at the time. Not only was the European budget for Fulbright by far the largest Fulbright program budget in the world but European governments – especially, but not just Germany - were the most responsive in supporting the program with their own public and private sector funds – as I would guess and hope they still are.

Since far more Americans would prefer a Fulbright experience in Europe and European governments are the most financially and administratively supportive, it’s no surprise then that the European program has had by far the largest staff as well as budget for years.  I suspect that’s still the case.

The problem is, however, that as much as I support the Fulbright program, one that I defended and administered in the US and overseas throughout my 27 plus year Foreign Service career – particularly since Fulbright is a real exchange (not just a one way program for foreigners to come to the US and spend a few weeks touring the country and meeting their counterparts) - there are other factors that need to be considered and questions that need to be asked and answered in the context of the international exchanges budget in the bureau as a whole.

Let's not forget that since 9/11, the budget for State’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs (ECA) has increased substantially more than just making up for the draconian cuts of the 1990s.

Now as the federal budget is again in a period of decline, what percentage of that decline affects the ECA bureau’s entire budget (don’t panic it’s been firewalled off from the overall State Department budget so funds from the Fulbright program cannot be diverted for use elsewhere in the department – or if that is happening just let me know and I too will sign the petition)?  Assuming, however, this is not the case, I would like to know whether Fulbright is being unduly penalized to cover increases in other ECA programs.   And if so why and which ones are among the more favored?

What is an exchange program:  one way or two?

I also support international youth exchanges which, for my money, are more cost effective and just as influential as Fulbright.  I think youth exchange should equally benefit American youth as well as foreigners – although with the exception of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (which I worked on in its formative years and which exchanges American and German youth for an academic year of study and family stays in each other’s countries) – have not benefited American teens as much as they should have because the emphasis for all but CBYX especially since the take-over of the Bureau by the State Department has been on bringing foreigners here – not also helping to send American teens to study and live with host families abroad. 

Resolved: Down with Teddy Bears—and Flowers and Candlelight Vigils; Up with Good Gun Laws

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Teddy bears are sweet.  Flowers are always lovely.  Candlelight processions look good on TV news shows.  But all of them are worthless, folks, except to give survivors and observers a quick and easy feel-good experience. In short, all these photogenic gestures are a sentimental evasion of the real responsibility, a long overdue responsibility: forcing the U.S. Congress to pass the kind of gun regulations Australia passed after a mass murder some years ago. ( FYI: hunters still have access to guns Down Under, but the murder—and suicide—rate has plunged.)

Eventually the pile of teddy bears, wilting flowers and half-burnt candles is nothing but a heap of trash waiting for a garbage truck—but not, all too often, as in Newtown, before it becomes a place of pilgrimage aka gawkers’ delight, inviting more useless sentimentality.

So here’s my wish for our collective New Year.  Let’s really honor those dead children.   Let’s not continue to let ourselves be brainwashed, manipulated, bamboozled, misled, distracted, lied to, sweet-talked, bribed or blackmailed by the gun-producers’ front known as the National Rifle Association. 

And let's not forget the form of vote-stealing that is better known as vote-buying. Mere votes and ballots mean little when the NRA showers millions to counteract them.  We must do something about this, too.  It’s called organizing to defeat Representatives and Senators who let the NRA call the shots—so to speak.

This effort has to be a strong national campaign resulting in a law that holds for the whole country uniformly.  Why?  It’s too easy for the NRA and the arms industry to blackmail individual state legislatures into non-action.  In fact, post-Newtown, the blackmail is already being applied in Connecticut.  Imagine!  At the first sign of popular pressure to enact strict gun laws, the state-based weapons manufacturers threatened to punish the very state in which the massacre of the innocents occurred.  The pressure is on in other states and cities, too.  Regulate us?  Ha!  How many jobs do you want to lose?  How much tax base?  And for sure we’ll defeat any legislator who votes for the least infringement of our right to produce as many guns as we want and sell them to anyone anytime.  Is this shocking or what?    
 
Also deployed, over the years, have been some other, all-too-effective indirect ways of preventing sensible gun control. Above all, the arms industry masquerading as the National Rife Association hides behind the Constitution, flagrantly misrepresenting it in order to keep the camouflage-providing, more naive members on board.  Most everyone knows about the abuse of the archaic Second Amendment.  But there are other ways of manipulating people’s imperfect understanding the Constitution.

In a recent instance, the NRA managed to corral a treaty-killing majority of senators into signifying that they would to refuse to ratify an international treaty on arms-dealing.  In this case, as often, the specious argument (meaning lie) was that the treaty would impinge on U.S. sovereignty by overriding U.S. gun laws.  That, in fact, can’t happen.  Treaties, by law, never supercede U.S. law.  But all it takes is a little fear-mongering (“They’re going to take away your guns—and your freedom!”) and the oh-so-patriotic American  gun industry can continue to profit mightily (pardon the pun)  by putting lethal force into the hands of terrorists, oddball militias, private armies and other swarms of thieves, murderers and rapists in every lawless area of the globe—some of whom will eventually have to be put down by U.S. troops.  Not bad!  The arms-dealers get to profit from both sides!

And now they’re trying the same double-dipping at home.  Hey!  It won’t matter that every angry crazy guy in America has a semi-automatic (or two or three) plus more handguns than he has pockets for —if everyone else is armed to the teeth, too.

Wow!  These guys and their NRA front men are brilliant con artists—and the latest "helpful" proposal is one of the best yet.  The government should mandate armed guards in all schools, plus all teachers and principals should be armed—and Congress should pay for it!!!!  Glock-a-bye baby!  The new lullaby. 

I’d suggest an amendment to that bill.  Any law mandating armed guards to protect against mass killings in schools or any other public venue should include the mandatory collection of a hefty tax to pay the salaries of those gun toters.  The tax should also bring in enough revenue to pay for the victims’ hospital or burial costs—and, yes, it should top up the salaries of first responders.  And, come to think of it, how about a provision to assuage, financially, the mental anguish on the part of survivors?  So Congress, if the NRA toadies among you think that armed guards and teachers are the solution to the proliferation of slaughter in the U.S., add a big fat sales tax to the bill.  Add 25% to the cost of every weapon purchased in the U.S. (and, to take care of the loophole problem, a 25% tariff on imported guns, too).

Better yet, let’s outlaw the sale of semi-automatics (all of them, now, without loopholes), then allocate federal money to mop up such privately-held weapons (at cost plus 10%, as the Aussies did) within three months or so.  (So much for the gruesome gun-ghouls who went on a gun-buying binge after Newtown!)  Let’s institute purchase or transfer registration that applies to everyone all the time (including freebie gifts to relatives and friends) for all weapons that remain legal.  And let’s also tell the gun industry that the Pentagon won’t buy guns from companies that move off shore.

Or something like that.  I’m not about to write the legislation.  Senator Diane Feinstein can do it— and hopefully she’ll produce a stronger bill this time around.  VP Joe Biden will support it, for sure.   The big question is whether our ever-compromising president has the courage to campaign for and sign such a bill. 

Meanwhile, given the great power of ridicule,  we should start making fun of the NRA, its absurd scare campaigns, its weird notions of sportsmanship, its twisted notions of patriotism. 

How many people should die—murdered or as suicides—so some guys can shoot a lot of clay pigeons without going through the boredom of reloading? 

Is it really sport if the deer or elk hasn’t a chance to get away?

And remember this: the NRA wants us to play with teddy bears.  The NRA loves votive candles.  The gun industry is all in favor of flowers.  What they don’t want is sane, effective gun control.

 

In the Keep of Yorkshire

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent   

In the silence of the keep

one forgets time,

even who one is.

Romance gallops as sunlit dust swirls

in search of glory 

among the clouds.

(Left, Castle Keep. Photo by John C. Dyer)

But this was a real castle with a real history, the Neville’s Raby Castle near Durham, County Durham. One of post Conquest Britain’s early seats of great power, Raby rises with surprising majesty above Yorkshire’s bucolic rolling green fields.

 

 

 

 

(Above, left to right, Raby Castle, Stable Entrance to Gardens, Raby Castle Gardens. Below, left to right, View from a Gun, Deer in Castle Park, Raby Castle 2. All photos by John C. Dyer)

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Left, Within the Keep, photo by John C. Dyer)

We came to Raby at the request of friends from the States.    

This trip was a reunion of sorts. I had missed my college reunion.  The couple we accompanied to Raby attended the same small college modeled on Oxford.

The Education/Immigration Conundrum

By Patricia H. Kushlis

In his column on Sunday September 9, Tom Friedman points out the chicken and egg relationship between education and employment.  The more education an American has, the more likely he – or she – will have a job.  Case in point:  Only 4.4 percent of American college graduates are currently unemployed. Conversely, 12 percent of high school dropouts are out of work.  Yet fewer Americans – especially young men – are graduating from college than before likely because of escalating costs of higher education.

The employment-education ratio is straightforward and linear: the higher one’s education, the better one’s potential for finding and holding a job.

While one can quibble that money does not buy happiness, most societies including America’s, value work.

Put it down to the Protestant work ethic – or whatever – but lazing around on the family couch or playing Angry Birds ad infinitum on a laptop or i-phone is not a socially valued attribute. Not for long anyway.

This is why Friedman – as did Bill Clinton in his brilliant Democratic National Convention speech - argues that if the US ever sets aside more economic stimulus money it needs to be invested in community colleges, Pell grants and vocational training classes.

Furthermore, Friedman argues, education in the Internet Age – or the age of Globalization and Technological Innovation - is about the continual reinvention of the self which means a never-ending race to update one’s knowledge and skills. Resting on one’s laurels after completing college or less is a recipe for failure in this knowledge-based hyper-competitive world.  

It’s the ability and willingness to learn complex tasks and the latest computer programs over and over and over again.   So far so good: keeping the brain active also helps keep it healthy. And, Friedman also points out that in this globalized age, low skilled jobs are melting away like Arctic icebergs in the Global Warming sun.  My analogy, not his, but I think you understand the meaning.

So where does the immigration impediment come in? What’s the connection?

Here’s the issue:  the more highly skilled jobs that are made available to foreigners determined by visa quotas set by the federal government, the less investment an American company needs to put into training America’s own.  Let’s face it: importing skilled foreign workers in large quantities is a cheap yet, in my view, socially counterproductive way to conduct business in these United States.

Nevertheless, hence the continual pressure from the private sector on the US government to increase the quota of visas for skilled workers from abroad. Companies claim they can’t find them in the US. They may well be right.  But why?  What about investing more in the people who are already here rather than contributing to an ever high unemployment rate that contributes to an ever larger permanent under-class?  Better education for Americans is not necessarily a “quick fix” to the problem – but it would benefit the country and the community in the long run.

On the Edge

By Patricia H. Kushlis

I saw the Gaultier exhibit at San Francisco’s De Young Museum last week.  Jean Paul Gaultier is one of the edgiest designers around although the exhibit is primly entitled “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier.”  The De Young is in one of this country’s edgiest cities.  The exhibit was crowded but not overbooked; the fashions on display dated from Gaultier’s earliest days – he was born in 1952 – to just a few years ago and almost all were designed for androgynist shows on the runway, not the street. (Photo of man's tartan suit by PHKushlis August 8, 2012)

 The talking mannequins were, for me at least, the highlights: their eyes blinked, rolled and winked and their lips moved in synch with their words.  These near androids were themselves worth the price of admission.  But then, I don’t have a Madonnaesque figure or personality, bras that resemble upside down ice cream cones make me uncomfortable and six inch heels – according to a recent Vogue article – are not just bad for the feet but also the back.  

I hadn’t been in California since 2008. 

Since then the Golden State has been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and three of its cities went belly-up in the past month.  At least three more major ones – San Jose, Los Angeles and Fresno – are on the brink – or so I was told by people who know what they’re talking about.  Money is being moved from Peter to pay Paul and expenditures on quality of life items – like education, the arts and the roads disappear like Aladdin’s genie shrinking back into his lamp. 

Road beds are a disaster:  they remind me of Manila days when the only axel-safe vehicles were the Pajeros:  sturdy and high enough chassed SUVs to survive the city’s cavernous potholes during a typhoon.  

California prices, too, are off the charts.  Gas was $1.00 higher per gallon than in New Mexico.  Souvenir bottles of California wines were on sale for an average – or so it seemed – of $100 per bottle (not per case) at the Oakland International Airport where most flights service these United States.  Tickets to special museum exhibits approached New York’s MOMA and the facsimiles of Gaultier’s teddy bear were “on special” for $99 plus tax ruling out all but the affluent or the privileged.

Drive 80 miles to the east and the brown rolling hills give way to the Central Valley, this country’s most fertile farm land.  Irrigation ditches – or acequias as they’re called in the Sunshine State – transport the water from the Sierra-Nevadas to the valley's fields.  Water is the state’s real gold and the ill-effects of global warming play havoc with the precipitation and snow pack in the mountains.  Hence our food supply.

Centuries ago these trenches were a gift from Middle Eastern Arabs where water was also scarce.  Then they - bringing this innovative technological knowhow with them - dashed across North Africa and into Spain.  The Romans brought us roads; the Muslims brought us acequias. Both remain as indispensable as this century's information highway - courtesy of the US government.