Speaking in Tongues

You have to admit that languages are amusing. Today, a woman who is a former colleague posted a new picture of herself on a social media site. She looks great, so I thought I’d be clever and tell her she was beautiful in Afrikaans, as she now lives in South Africa and is married to an Afrikaner. The word for “beautiful” in that language is “pragtig,” if I read the Google-supplied translation site correctly.

PRAGTIG? Does that sound like anything close to “beautiful” to your ears? Probably not if you’re an English-speaker. In any event, I tried the same tactic on the Filipina teller at my bank, using the Tagalog word for beautiful, which is “magunda.” She broke into a smile, so I guess it worked. But “magunda” just doesn’t have the flow that ”beautiful” seems to have.

As you can probably guess, the benefits of indulging in this hobby are limited, so I don’t do it all the time. But it’s interesting how many of us think our language is the best, just because that’s the one we grew up with, and besides, we like the sound of it. Unfortunately, some of us think our native language is the only one that should be spoken in our own country.

Admittedly, most linguists will tell you that not all languages are equal. Some are better as applied to some things. We have words in English for which some other languages have no equivalent, and the same is true in reverse.

All this brings me back to one of my favorite themes, that language is nothing more than a tool of communication, not a political weapon or something to take special pride in. Used to be, if you wanted to be cool and demonstrate your savoir-faire, as that very expression implies, your second language, at least, had to be French. But that was 200 years ago.

I believe that children who are raised in and educated to fluency in only one language are children in danger of growing up to think there is only one way of approaching problems – not good for the brain.

Here’s a good theme for a romantic science-fiction novel: a mysterious cloud spreads over Earth, and people find that they are unable to fall in love unless it’s with someone who doesn’t speak their language. Either Rosetta Stone would be flying off the shelves, or there’d be no need for it – I don’t know which.

I Was There, and So Were They

This week’s annual meeting of the U.N. in New York reminds me of my own little box seat on world events as I was growing up in the city.

We lived on the second floor of an apartment building which had a good view of Park Avenue (yes, the average person actually had a shot at affording such an abode in those days). I was right across the street from Hunter College, but more importantly, my bedroom window had a beautiful view of the USSR mission at 680 Park.

That building was the frequent target of demonstrations, mostly by Hungarian expatriates protesting the Soviet Union’s use of tanks to suppress freedom movements in their country. Sometimes there were only a few demonstrators; other times the crowds were large, so much so that New York police on horses were there to keep the peace. The crowds were not violent – they made noise and carried signs, but it was the late 1950s, after all.

The Soviet mission had a wonderful architectural feature: a good-sized balcony overlooking Park Avenue. It was not uncommon for Russian and other dignitaries who were staying or who were invited there to appear on the balcony and wave at the crowds, even unappreciative ones.

On more than one occasion, then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, when he was in town, would appear on the balcony. Sometimes this was in the evening, when my parents were having people over for dinner. Not to miss an opportunity, my mother would bring the guests back to my bedroom, open the window, and look out. It didn’t really matter to them whether I was actually in bed or not. Once, Fidel Castro and Mr. Khrushchev had a meeting at the mission. My memory is bad on this point, so I don’t know whether they appeared on the balcony together, but if they did, I’m sure my mom and her dinner guests were craning their necks out the window. My mother would sometimes go downstairs to invite the police on their horses to come upstairs for a drink. No ma’am, they said, we’re on duty. And then there was the issue of what to do with the horses.

Even our side street adjacent to our apartment building was useful, because limousines carrying important people on Park Avenue would sometimes use it to escape heavy traffic. Once, the limo carrying French President Charles de Gaulle turned down the street while I was looking out the window, and I could swear that he saw me wave at him and waved back. But maybe that was just my first childhood delusion of grandeur.

Right across the side street, as I mentioned, was Hunter College, and carved into the wall was this saying by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “We are of different opinions at different hours, but we may always be said to be at heart on the side of truth.” I saw it every morning when I got up and looked out the window.

Which tells me I better not make too much stuff up here, historical or not.

Romney and the Duchess

They’re still talking about it on cable news – whether Mitt Romney blew his campaign out of the water with his remark about 47 percent of Americans being dependent victims. And then there are the topless photos of Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge, which have hit print in Europe.

What’s the relationship here? In Romney’s case, he thought he was speaking to a specialized audience about campaign strategy. The Duchess was just trying to get a little sun, and wasn’t playing to an audience at all, or at least, thought she wasn’t.

The price of fame keeps going up. When you’re really famous, you can run, but it’s almost impossible to hide these days. It’s a reality that those folks find themselves having to learn to deal with. And everywhere they go, whatever they say, they have to wonder whether there’s a data-gathering device nearby. And now, everyone has them. Still, the Duchess did have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and it’s hard to blame Prince William, who saw his mother essentially killed by paparazzi, for being angry.

I of course have less sympathy for Mr. Romney, who is actively seeking as much publicity as he can get. He should know by now that everything that comes out of his mouth is probably going to be within range of a smartphone – and fair game. Did he really blow his campaign up? The thing that will probably keep him viable is our woefully short attention span. We still have those debates yet.

I haven’t seen the pictures of the Duchess, but I think I’m safe in guessing that they offer no anatomical surprises, and that the world will move on.

All that said, these incidents demonstrate to me how increasingly rare safe places are for people with fame, beauty, political power or ambition, and/or money. And with cameras and microphones attached to everyone like new physical appendages, even we common folk are getting a taste of this problem.

Safe places, where we can wear as much (or as little) as we want or say what we want to say, are disappearing faster than the Brazilian rain forest – and I hope we start figuring out how to preserve them in our own lives, because famous or ordinary, we all need them.

The Price of Speech

here are few rights that Americans revere more than freedom of speech. And we exercise it 24/7 on hundreds of channels. Some of it is uplifting. Most of it is babble. And sometimes, it’s just plain vile.

I’ve said often that while speech in this country is free, it is not free of consequences. You can say what’s on your mind and cause discord in the family, or lose a friendship. If you slander someone, they can sue you. The greater the amplification of what you say, the more damage you can do. A verbal slip by a prominent person can cause the loss of a job, or an election.

Personally, I am deeply ashamed that the video denigrating the prophet Muhammad was produced here in the United States, even while recognizing that the producer had a right to do what he did. Does this individual have any legal liability for the deaths of four Americans in Libya this week? As an aside, even the courts have recognized that there have to be some limits on speech, for example, you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Is the crowded theater, in this case, the Muslim world?

The release of the film, which has actually been around for a while, was a great excuse for Al-Qaeda and other anti-American interests to launch attacks – no coincidence, of course, that all this erupted on September 11.

Here at home, I don’t question the right of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to express criticism of the Obama administration’s response to this crisis. But even he is learning that there’s a price to be paid for what many are considering ill-timed remarks.

I wish I could tell you I had a solution here . All I know is, those who were behind this movie will get what’s coming to them, and the principle of free speech, while being tested, will remain intact.

It really all comes under the heading of, “This, too, shall pass.” And while such incidents will likely repeat themselves in some form as time goes on, I’m confident that the Arab spring is NOT turning in to an Arab fall.

A President's Mission in Life

President Obama left no doubt about his mission after getting into office: it was to do something about reforming healthcare. Exactly how he did it or whether he did it well are debatable, but the bottom line is, he did it.

Presidents who have missions usually accomplish them. With Lincoln it was freeing the slaves; with Teddy Roosevelt it was busting trusts; with FDR it was the New Deal; with Johnson it was the Great Society. It doesn’t mean the missions were always good (war in Iraq) – but they were missions.

I want the next President to make tax reform his mission in life (or at least in office, but life would be better). All these discussions about increasing taxes on the wealthy or continuing tax cuts, capital gains rates, you name it, just take us around in very big circles.

The federal income tax code is 100 years old next year. When it started out, it was probably a good idea in concept, like the plans for a simple new home to support a nuclear family. But almost right away, they started adding wings to accommodate great aunts, and upper stories to take care of cousins. After a while, such structures become ugly and unbalanced. The roof starts to leak, then the rats come, and well, there it goes. The owner keeps making simple repairs to keep up, but eventually loses control.

Taxes are an issue at the very heart of our economic crisis. Some may get angry at Mitt Romney for paying only 13 percent in taxes or squirreling money away in the Cayman Islands, but if what he’s doing is legal, he’s only doing what just about all of us would do if we were in his shoes. It’s not his fault. It’s the system.

The other night, CNN reported that while the IRS collects $1 trillion or so a year in taxes, the loopholes and exemptions total about $1.3 trillion. Bill Clinton talks about arithmetic. There’s Lesson One.

So please, Mr. President, whoever you may be next January, make comprehensive tax reform your mission in life. The code doesn’t have to be complicated. All it really has to be is fair. Just decide for yourself that it’s doable, and take us there. The opponents of healthcare reform will be pussycats compared to who’s going to come after you over this issue. That’s why it has to be your mission.

In Politics, It's Back to Business As Usual

So much for parties’ parties. The big political conventions are history, and there’s probably no question that for sheer presentation, the Democratic show eclipsed the Republican version. Of course, the Dems had a bigger hall, there was no hurricane to compete with, and they got to capitalize on the GOP’s mistakes. And then, there was Clint Eastwood, but that’s another story.

A friend rightly pointed out that the conventions are nothing but expensive infomercials, and I’d agree with that. Still, they do give us a view of the major-party candidates. While some people dismiss speechifying as simple fluff, the fact is that one of the skills a president needs is the ability to connect and inspire, especially at times when the country needs it -- even if the facts sometimes interfere with a good speech.

Now what? Well, for the moment at least, it’s (sadly) back to hit pieces and attack ads, which will likely increase in frequency and intensity. The conventional wisdom is that these “work,” although the electorate may be a little smarter than the campaign professionals think. Please forgive me if I seek refuge in NPR and PBS for a couple of months.

What we can look forward to are the upcoming debates. Here again, many may dismiss these as a simple display of particular skills, and it could be argued that the candidate who is the most effective debater isn’t automatically the most effective leader.

Even so, every view of the candidates in action, at conventions, in debates, one-on-one interviews by both serious journalists and late-night talk-show hosts, and even in dealing with the negative ads, furnish pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that have the potential to produce workable pictures of the people most of us will be voting for.

No doubt, many of us feel that our political system, in terms of the two major-party candidates, has left us with nothing but a bad choice. But at least we have one, and it would seem that the choice is pretty clear.

All that said, though, please forgive me when I say that I wish the calendar today read November 7 instead of September 7.

When God Speaks

Some of you may remember the iconic TV commercial from the 1970s for a well-known investment broker, in which groups of people are conversing, and the voiceover announcer whispers, “When E.F. Hutton talks…” Immediately, the people stop whatever they’re doing, and there’s dead silence. The announcer finishes with, “…people listen.”

Now we’re about to elect a President (as well as other public officials), and this question always comes up: Are we comfortable with a leader who consults God before making critical decisions?

Complicating this is the question of whether God speaks to Catholics, Mormons, Jews, Protestants, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. in the same language. Suppose someone doesn’t consult God at all, but relies on his or her own judgment, bolstered by life experience (yes, someday we may elect an avowed atheist as President).

It’s hard to come up with a correct answer to these questions, so we have to fall back on what we’re comfortable with. Personally, I don’t have a problem with a President asking God for advice. I figure that whoever holds that job needs all the help he or she can get, from any effective source. For me, the issue is not whether God speaks. I think he or she does. The issue is about whether those in positions of leadership are listening.

And that’s just the beginning, because it doesn’t work like the E.F. Hutton commercial at all. When God speaks, most people don’t stop to listen. There’s interference. As a seasoned radio operator, I can tell you that it’s often hard to pick out the signal you’re listening for out of the interference and static. But if you have experience, you know the signal when you hear it.

This is a gift not all of us have. We can ask God for advice on whom to vote for, and we may not hear the answer. What’s left is Plan B – using our best judgment to determine which candidate appears to be the best at picking out that signal through all the interference – including what’s coming from his or her own head.

And I think we know that when we hear it.

Foreign Policy

This week I had to take our relatively old laptop into the computer repair shop, which typically has a moderate turnover of employees. The new and attractive young woman at the counter had an accent. I asked her where she was from. It was Kazakhstan. I hesitated for a second, then said, “Alma Ata.” She broke into an absolutely radiant smile. “How you know this?” she asked.

No, I wasn’t psychic. Alma Ata is not her name. That’s the capital of her country, and happens to be her hometown. I know this because I’m an amateur radio operator and I’m constantly consulting maps. Kazakhstan, of course, was a part of the former Soviet Union, and is where the Russian space center is. Baikonur is that area’s Cape Canaveral.

My knowledge of geography made me a new friend – knowledge which might have been even more useful if I were 40 years younger and unmarried! Anyway, I can safely say that this is the first Kazakh I have ever met in person (I have talked to them once or twice on the radio).

Reverse the process. Let’s say you were parachuted into Kazakhstan, whose language you barely spoke, and you encountered someone who knew a city or two in your country – especially if you were from a smaller city in a less-populated state, and you ran across a Kazakh who knew something about it and perhaps had even been there. You’d probably be smiling yourself, right?

Anyway, seeing the smile on this girl’s face reinforced for me the concept that knowing something about the “Ubeki-beki-stan-stans” of this world, to reference Herman Cain (who?) can have its benefits.