Transatlantic love, then and now

I've been thinking a lot about love lately (I'm in it), and I can't get enough of this Atlantic piece about love in the US written by a Frenchman... in 1938. And yet, so very much d'actualite.

An Iraqi journalist's first visit to the US

From the NYT's Baghdad Bureau, Iraqi journalist Suadad al-Salhy comments on American hypocrisy, kindness, New York cosmopolitanism, and security screenings at the UN. Check out the comment section too - they range from the incisiveness to the offensively xenophobic.

Warrant issued for al-Bashir

I recently spent a week in Shanghai, which was QUITE the...experience. I'm getting together my thoughts on that, and on the Jesse Jackson-Obama furor.

In the meantime, a bright spot in an otherwise horrific situation- thanks to the tireless efforts of prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo (I hope he wins a Nobel), the ICC is issuing an arrest warrant for Omar Hassan al-Bashir, president of Sudan. He will be charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. Nothing like following in the footsteps of Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic.

A few months ago, I saw the documentary Darfur Now. And one quote in particular has stuck with me. Pablo Recalde, head of the World Food Program team in West Darfur, was talking about the risks his drivers take delivering food, and about why he's even there, thousands of miles away from his family*:

"It is my responsibility as a human being. Punto."

*forgive me if I misquoted, I tried to double check online, to no avail. But you get the gist.

NYT: An Interpreter Speaking up for Migrants

This NYT article today provides a great example of the difficulties that migrant workers and other foreigners face when dealing with the US judicial system. Erik Camayd-Freixas is an experienced court interpreter who wrote a 14-page essay detailing
that the immigrant defendants whose words he translated, most of them villagers from Guatemala, did not fully understand the criminal charges they were facing or the rights most of them had waived... Most of the Guatemalans could not read or write, he said. Most did not understand that they were in criminal court.
“The questions they asked showed they did not understand what was going on,” Professor Camayd-Freixas said in the interview. “The great majority were under the impression they were there because of being illegal in the country, not because of Social Security fraud.”
One of the pillars of our legal system is the idea that individuals will be held responsible for their actions regardless of their knowledge of the law. And that makes complete sense: it would be too easy, otherwise, to claim that you didn't know something was against the law. There are exceptions, including for children, the mentally retarded, and the insane (which is a legal term, not a medical one). But what if your culture, your paradigm of reality prevents you from fully comprehending what's going on? I am not in any way equating cultural differences with insanity, mental handicap or immaturity, mind you. Nor do I have a ready answer to this important question.
In addition to the barriers of language, literacy, and ignorance of green cards, work permits, and social security numbers, many immigrants face tremendous cultural barriers to success in the legal system. Concepts that Americans (and other Westerners) take for granted are simply irrelevant, including the rule of law, the adversarial legal system, the concept of factual evidence, citizenship and residency permits... Those concepts only make sense if you have the benefit of thousands of years of Western cultural history, from Ancient Greece onward. The "Lou Dobbses" of the immigration debate focus on people's undocumented entry into the United States (eevn though most "illegals" entered legally but overstayed their visas), arguiing that "illegals" committed a "crime" and should therefore face the consequences, no matter how impractical it would be to deport millions of people or the nefarious impact this would have on our already fragile economy. Sancrosanct borders are not a universal feature, in fact I would argue that for most of its history, mankind has lived in blissful ignorance of national sovereignty. Millions of people live that way today, particularly in post-colonial Africa where international boundaries were largely determined by white men drinking scotch in a faraway foggy capital.

High fidelity

Was I the only 20-something woman in America who thought Miranda was a complete idiot for moving out on Steve after he confessed to his one-night stand? Probably. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence (and a fair amount of actual research) showing that Americans are much more moralistic than Europeans, Latin Americans, or many other societies (setting aside ultra-religious societies like Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan) when it comes to extra-marital sex. most of the comparisons are between the US and Europe, in part because that tends to be the region Americans know best but more importantly because gender equality is roughly comparable on either side of the North Atlantic.
This New York Magazine article by Philip Weiss is a compellingly honest account of one man's struggle with monogamy. Some of the intercultural highlights:

When I decided to write about it, the novelist Frederic Tuten offered a warning
about the sanctity in which Americans hold monogamy in marriage. “You can go
against it in life, but don’t speak against it. It makes you a monster. Who speaks against it? And this creates a dichotomy, between what we live and what we profess.”

Apple pie, motherhood and monogamy: 3 core American values?

Braverman pointed out that American habits, even on the Upper East Side, have a
moralistic component. That affects men too. “I’m not a sociologist,” she cautioned. “But we have a history of puritanism as a very dominant sensibility in the United States. That’s not the dominant sensibility in France or Italy. My observation is that often when people are having an affair, they get very involved and they start questioning their attachment to the marriage, whichbecomes very threatening to the marriage’s survival. The husbands here don’t treat the affairs in the way we imagine Europeans treat their affairs.”

This passage explains particularly well, I think, how rapid cultural change in our society has left us searching for new models:

Susan Squire, the author of a forthcoming history of marriage called I Don’t, told me that marriage wasn’t made to handle all the sexual pressure we’re putting on it. For one thing, the average life span is far greater than it was 100 years ago; what is marriage to do with all that time? And in days gone by, marriage was a more formal institution whose purposes were breeding and family.
Squire says that cultural standards of morality have changed dramatically. In ancient aristocracies, rich men had courtesans for pleasure and concubines for quick sex. In the Victorian age, prostitution was far more open than it is today. America is a special case. By the early-twentieth century, she says, the combined impact of egalitarian ideals and the movies had burdened American marriage with a new responsibility: providing romantic love forever. Squire says that the first couples therapy began cropping up in the thirties, when people found their marriages weren’t measuring up to cultural expectations.
“Marriage isn’t the problem; it’s the best answer anyone’s come up with,” Squire says. “Men and women are equally oppressed by expectations. Expectations are ridiculously high now. Nobody expected you to find personal fulfillment and happiness in marriage. Marriage can be very satisfying, but it’s not going to be this heady romance for 40 years.” Marriage involves routine, and routine kills passion. “What does Bataille say?” Squire continues. “There is nothing erotic that is not transgressive. Marriage has many benefits and values, but eroticism is not one of them.”
A long and supportive marriage may be more valuable than a sexually faithful one, Squire says. “Why does society consider it more moral for you to break up a marriage, go through a divorce, disrupt your children’s lives maybe forever, just to be able to fuck someone with whom the fucking is going to get just as boring as it was with the first person before long?”

My perception of the French (or at least Parisian) attitude is just what Squire seems to advocate: the right thing to do, in most cases, is to stay together for the kids, the family, the social life, and yes, money, and eventually work it out to grow old together. I know several couples now in their 40s and 50s who have had aventures and rencontres over the years, but at the end of the day still very much want to be married to one another.
One man interviewed for the NY Mag article is Glyn Vincent, a New York writer on social and cultural matters who is half-French:

“Marriage is more of a formality; sex is not the most important thing,” he said. “From the time I was small, I was led to understand that people have affairs. C’est la vie. This is just going to happen. You’re not going to make a big deal out of it when it does happen. You shouldn’t be hurtful about it. You’re going to be discreet. Don’t shove it in people’s faces.” While Vincent sees young Americans experimenting with new norms—“fuck buddies,” friends with benefits, etc.—those innovations don’t seem to have rubbed off on their elders. New York divorces continue to involve sexual infidelity as a breaking point.
“When I make a comment about infidelity in social situations, there’s always a
little element of mistrust in people’s eyes,” he said. “I think we’re getting into a question of social stability. The male libido is considered a very dangerous and a potentially disruptive force in society. I think that’s why there are so many religious dictums and taboos around that. The idea that one is allowed multiple partners—this is something that has to be rigidly controlled.”

Not having any experience with long-term monogamy myself, I'm loath to make a definitive judgement on these issues. That said, as the child of a 17-year-long faithful (according to each of my parents, at least) but nevertheless very unhappy marriage, I'm reluctant to equate infidelity with automatic divorce. I guess the only point of view expresssed in the article that I can whole-heartily embrace is this one:

My sister Alice, a respectable suburban woman happily married for eons, says that she’s come to respect the fact that sexuality runs the gamut: Some people seem happy with a sexless marriage, while others aren’t built for monogamy. The only morality she hangs on to is how honest one person is with the other about their stuff going into a marriage.

More on the Albanian Kanun

Intriguing NYT article this morning about Albanian men and boys forced to live as recluses because of blood feuds. According to the Kanun, the ancient Albanian code of conduct that i discussed in this post, if a member of family A kills a member of family B, family B has the right and is even honor-bound to avenge the death by killing any male member of family A. As a result, many men and boys are stuck indoors because they are likely to be killed if they venture outdoors, and must rely on their female relatives and on charity for subsistence. Being second-class citizens, women are exempt from blood feuds.
"Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" - how radical the Judeo-Christian idea of turning the other cheek, and forgiving your enemies seems right now.

As an American in Australia

If there was a far end of the earth, Australia would be it. No wonder the English shipped the bad boys and girls there (R.I.P Ned Kelly). That's what I remember thinking during the 15.5 hour straight shot from L.A. to Sydney. Coming from the States you get to fly straight through the center of the Pacific and over the equator. If we went down I would choose a gun over a raft. Even if they came for survivors with a sea plane it would take them at least 10 hours to get there.  Yeah! I would take my own life before I would wade in the water for 10 hours.  Do you know how pruney I would get? Oh, and both the sharks and possibility of sharks wouldn't be any fun either.  After all of that flying, we landed in the Sydney Airport, which was my first amphibious airport. So as we were landing I saw water, water, water, then some water, ok more water (isn't there supposed to be land somewhere), water, WATER (50 meters), WATER (I mentally brace for impact), aaaaaand then I see land and hear the tires squeal almost a second later. "G'die and welcome ta Astralia."

There were some feelings that I got from Australia in the year that I lived there from day one till I left. One was that everyone from the Prime Minister (even if he is lame) to the 7 year old girl has a very similar relaxed and informal take on life; not in some backwards hillbilly way either. I just felt welcome to be as casual and comfortable as I could be in most situations; except in high end restaurant, for example. They had class too.

Secondly, their food seemed almost flavorless to me. I could order a beautiful looking chicken alfredo at a nice restaurant and it would feel like I was only smelling it from someone who had ordered the dish at the table next to me (you how you can taste smells sometimes?). Granted, I was coming from a land of excessive ingredients (especially salt), donuts, and McSugarFatBurgers, but even at the end of my assignment there I still didn't adjust to seeing more crust than cheese on my pizza. And then there was the matter of their insane love for beets. Beets on burgers? Whatever, you can keep it. Do your thing.

If you ever find your way over there and get invited to a barbeque you should definitely go because Aussies know how to have a good time on and create a fun atmosphere. However, if they try to tell you that they're grilling some burgers you should be prepared that they'll be cooking probably be cooking risoles, which are almost like big meatballs, and then they'll have a bun 5 times that size for to eat it with. I asked a trustworthy Aussie what the deal was with this and he pretty much just thought it wasn't a problem at all. I mean, its like eating a Vienna sausage in a regular hotdog bun. That's a huge deal to me. Maybe it's just me though. Their cereal aisles were made up of about 15 types of bran cereal, 7 types of corn flakes, and 1 type of cereal with taste. I think it was imported from the U.S. Best cereal country in the world. There are so many places that have never seen Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It's sad.

Another thing I couldn't get over while I was there was their well-groomed cities. They really took care of their communities. It was almost like they cared for their cities. This was something very weird to me as an American. I lived in the nation's capital, Canberra. I remember counting days before I would see a single piece of trash on the side of the road. Usually when I did see some trash it was from trash that had fallen out of a trash can that had been blown over by the wind or something. The city had trees everywhere and a few huge hills that you could walk to the top of and see over the place. I don't remember seeing one piece of ugly billboard or other ugly advertisement that ruins the look of so many American cities that would be beautiful otherwise. The odd thing was that it was designed by an American. Even other cities that I visited that were heavily populated (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast) were always well maintained and were visually impressive. Australians love their cars like Americans do, but haven't ruined their gorgeous cities by surrounding themselves with overbearing highways.

The last big thing I couldn't get over was how kindly everyone took to me when they heard my American accent. I felt like I could pretty easily blend in until I opened my mouth, and then everyone seemed much more interested. It wouldn't take them too long to get uninterested because of my lame conversational skills, but for that first moment I had them ever time. It would be the same as hearing some Aussie's accent in the States. Whatever they have to say is always more interesting; even if they are talking shit about how American football is weak because of all the pads and rugby is better (as if they are all just walking briskly around in sumo wrestling suits or something). There was always a big "myth" in the Marine Corps that Aussie chicks loved Americans and that all you had to do is talk to them and you were golden for the rest of the night. I was always pretty skeptical because I had never seen anything like it. I was basically wrong, and boy was I happy about it. I think I'm a perfect example of this true myth because I have an almost girly, timid approach to getting with girls and it still worked. Or something. I feel like I throw out a little too much info sometimes, but there is way too much funny in truth that I can't always resist; even if I am the butt of the joke. Honestly though, it was one of those things that might sound slutty to Americans, but from what I saw the girls were just very comfortable and open with having sex. They knew they enjoyed it and weren't ready to get married, so having the occasional fling wasn't as taboo as in the States. Basically, they had similar mindsets to guys and everyone was o.k. with it.

There are many different regions of the U.S. and I know that usually large cities have a larger crowd of more free thinking adults, which means there are more girls that are more open to casual sex.  However, even if you compare the average college student at a club or bar in D.C. (population 581,000)to an Aussie girl at a club or bar in her capital of Canberra (population 327,000) the Aussie girl wins every time for openness toward showing interest in guys.  To me, there are less games to be played with an Aussie girl.  

In a single guy's world who isn't looking to settle down who is looking to me a girl for either dating or just a one night stand everything is very simple.  You meet a girl and almost automatically know wether she meets your physical standards or not.  All you would have to worry about then is wether or not she was interested in you and why.  With Aussie girls this played out pretty easily for me through casual conversation.  With American girls I have found that you have to show interest, but if you show too much then you have overstepped your boundaries.  There is a game to be played with rules that must be abided by.  They are more reserved with how they liked to be approached about sex unless they are the girl that went out with full intentions or they are older and just know what they want.  With Aussie girls, I couldn't really find a game or rules other than don't be an asshole.  The atmosphere in America is edgy and wound, while the atmosphere in Oz is laid back.  The atmosphere comes into play with dating in these countries too.

I know that it seems that every country is known for its drinking, but Australia is my all around favorite so far. It has heaps of delicious beer, top notch white wine, and more great beer. They have a different take on alcoholism too. I was talking to an Aussie friend over there about how you could easily be considered an alcoholic if you went out to drink at a local pub 4 days a week. Not a raging alcoholic, but an alcoholic nonetheless. After a brief intermission to let him laugh it off, followed by a sigh of pity for me and my country, he began to tell me a story of an Aussie version of an alcoholic. It sounded like a joke as he explained to me how a regular at the very bar we were in used to polish off 8 pints a night at the very least. When the guy had the money he would easily make it 12 pints in a night. I expressed major concern for this guys health and Matty (guy telling the story) agreed that it was quite dangerous and mentioned that he did end up having problems. The guy hadn't been to the bar in a while he said. So, apparently, just after you are diagnosed with cirrhosis you are considered an alcoholic. To be fair, most Aussies I met were very responsible with their drinking, in my opinion, and were quick to get a taxi if they were drunk. Unless of course they were irresponsible.

Maybe this isn't the most interesting subject, but money was friggin' sweet. Well, their bills were anyway. They were vibrantly colored, a different color and size for each bill, and they had little, clear, and uniquely designed plastic windows in the corner of each bill. The coins on the other hand... Yeah, the coins were all fucked up. The $2 coin was the smallest, the 1 cent coin was made out of plastic, and 50 cent coin weight about 2 lbs and was the size of small plate. Literally, it was at least 2 inches in diameter. I always carried one on me for protection.