October 2, 2019--What's Up With Australia?

Before we could sit, John Allan said, "What's up with Australia?" His face with his new beard made him look cherubic. His eyes were as lively as I had seen for some time. He looked as if he had shed ten years since we had coffee with him just a few days ago.

"What's up with you?" I asked. 

"I was taking a shower and listening to NPR and they seemed to be talking about Australia. Is anything going on down there?" He was grinning and winking.

"I think I know what you're referring to," I said, "Trump."

"Right you are," John said, clapping his hands, now smiling playfully, "Remember George Papadopoulos? A low-level Trump operative who was stirring around looking for dirt about Hillary for the 2016 election? He somehow managed to meet with a high-level Australian diplomat in London who told him the Russians had stuff that could undermine Hillary's campaign. Including, I think, that the Ukrainians had their hands on a server that held thousands of her emails."

"I'm with you," I said, sliding into the booth.

"So, according to NPR Trump recently asked his cultural conservative pal, the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, who rose to prominence by leading the effort to close Australia's borders to refuges and immigrants, Trump asked him if he would help Attorney General, Trump's poodle, Bill Barr, who was traveling the world to gather information about the origins of the Mueller probe."

"He can't give that up," Rona said, "Even though he dodged the Mueller bullet, he's still obsessed with it."

"He never can let go of anything, especially anything critical of him," John said. "Even the smallest things. But that's just the beginning of the breaking news. All afternoon on Monday, beginning about 4 o'clock, there was one bombshell after another. First, we learned that Rudy was subpoenaed by three House committees to turn over to them documents about his Ukraine-related dealings."

"Next," Rona said, "we heard that Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was on the line during Trump's call with Ukraine president Zelezney. The 'do-us-a-favor' call that may turn out to be the smoking gun that brings Trump down."

"Then," John said, "there was the breaking news that Barr is on an undisclosed worldwide trip to gather dirt about his own FBI and the CIA. Specifically what they did to undermine Trump and help bring about the Mueller investigation. Barr's in Italy now."

"From the look of him," I said, "he's spending most of his time in trattorias."

"Nasty, nasty," John said, enjoying every word and tidbit of news and gossip, "We could go on," he said.

"I think it's the beginning of the end," Rona said. She's not prone to be optimistic about these matters.

"That's why you're looking so energetic and youthful," I said to John, "It's not just your beard." 

"I got some sleep and woke up at two in the morning, not as usual to anxiasize, but to see if there was any new news since I had gone to bed."

Rona said, "Speaking of sleep, I heard from my sister that my brother-in-law, for the first time in more than two years, had a good night's sleep."

May 4, 2018--Elvers

In a few days we will be heading to Maine. 

One thing we look forward to is spending six months with the TV turned off. We do get the New York Times to keep in touch with the news but even more for the crossword puzzle. We try to keep things there as simple and peaceful and deeply soul-satisfying as possible. To help with this we do some disconnecting from the wider world and some of its problems. This helps. Especially now when things have become so ugly and raw. 

In Maine for us it's about pursuing happiness Declaration of Independence style, where the happiness being pursued is more about contentment than jollity.

And, we find, if we want to, there are other ways to stay connected to that larger world other than paying obsessive attention to what's going on with North Korea, Syria, trade wars, and the dislocating and agitating effects of globalization.

But, then, since globalization presumably affects everyone and everything, there should be evidence of it in the Midcoast. And indeed there is.

Take baby eels for example. Elvers.

In a few places on the planet they spawn in the ocean and then migrate to fresh water where they grow to adult size. More than anywhere else these elvers find their way across the Gulf of Maine and then enter the tidal estuaries and fresh water streams of the coast just 15 miles from where we spend the season.

But before they are allowed to grow to adult size they are netted by a fortunate one thousand fishermen who have state permission to fish for them. "Fortunate," since this year elvers are expected to go for up to $2,800 a pound. Great news as last year they brought less than half that, just $1,300. 

It is. estimated that the total yield for the elver fishermen will reach a promising $26 million by the end of the season. 

The record prices this year are the result of poor winter harvests around the globe. The elvers in Maine thus are part of the globalized market in baby eels.

That globalized market is complex and spans the oceans. The reason prices are so high in Maine this year is because captures of japonica eels in the western Pacific have been low and this in turn has boosted prices for Atlantic eels. But catches in Asia are surging and that soon will result in a price decline in Maine. 

Elvers are sold to Japanese buyers who fly them to Japan where they are allowed to become adults and after that find there way to only the best sushi restaurants where they are, as unagi, in great demand.

In fact, in the fall, our local New York City Japanese restaurant  Sharaku, serves them as very special delicacies. 

Before knowing about the Maine connection and the triangular trade route that circles the globe and brings them via their unique supply chain from up the road from our Maine place and then some months later to Sharaku, just two blocks from here, fresh eel unagi are my favorite kind of sushi, served on rice, sauced by a slowly reduced blend or mirin, sake, sugar, and soy.

June 29, 2016--Tuning Out Istanbul

Last night there was another horrendous terrorist attack on the international airport in Istanbul. At least 41 were killed and scores more injured. The networks, especially the cable news networks, were all over the story, proclaiming breaking news whenever there was something more-or-less new to report.

With great guilt, I watched about 15 minutes worth of the coverage. Enough for me to get the basic facts--the journalistic who, what, when, where, why, and how. And then I shut down the TV and stopped clicking on the New York Times Website for the latest.

I felt guilt since I pride myself on being well informed and concerned and compassionate when there are dire circumstances, especially when innocent people are harmed.

But in those 15 minutes of watching I got most of the who-what questions answered; and though by then no group had claimed responsibility, one knows the who and why. Sadly, these days, after 9/11 and hundreds of other "incidents," it is easy on one's own to fill in those blanks.

So why watch the same eyewitness videos over and over and over again? Because you have family or friends living or traveling in the region? To make certain the horror of the event is forever etched in one's mind? Morbid curiosity? A version of shadenfreude? Better them then me?

And then what does being well-informed mean? How does one best become well informed and then what purposes does it serve?

Isn't being well informed to help think about what actions to take? Whom to vote for? What to write about in letters to editors? What groups to join? Where to donate money? What to say to friends and acquaintances who you want to convince to change their views and come over to your side?

To become better informed about what happened in Istanbul, to immerse oneself in it, again, is for what purpose?

Assuming ISIS is responsible, other than becoming more fearful, to express more rage, what will that then mean in real-life terms?

Will it keep me off international flights? Will I no longer be willing to drop friends off at the airport? Riddled with anxieties about things I can't control, will I become more of a shut-in? Will I vote for Trump believing that he will be better at preventing these barbarous acts than Clinton? Will I sink further and further into despair and cynicism? Will I, more than I do already, want to hide out in Maine and spend less time in target-rich New York?

I can see having an interest in knowing for its own sake. Not as a precursor to taking action. I have lots of those kinds of interests. Not unrelated to Istanbul, some of them include spending time involved with escapist entertainments--my ongoing reading, a marginal interest in a few sports, wanting to listen to more music than at present. And in all cases I want to know more about them.

But as to Istanbul, at the risk of disappointing myself or deflating my self-image, I am attempting to limit my involvement. Still I know I will read more about it later today. Though as little as possible since there will be just a few important additional things to learn. But beyond that . . .