King Edmund of East Anglia

From Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom:

***

I do not know if King Ed­mund was a saint. He was a fool, that was for sure. He had given the Danes refuge be­fore they at­tacked Eofer­wic, and giv­en them more than refuge. He had paid them coin, pro­vid­ed them with food, and sup­plied their army with hors­es, all on the two promis­es that they would leave East An­glia in the spring and that they would not harm a single church­man.

They kept their promis­es, but now, two years lat­er and much stronger, the Danes were back, and King Ed­mund had de­cid­ed to fight them. He had seen what had hap­pened to Mer­cia and Northum­bria, and must have known his own king­dom would suf­fer the same fate, and so he gath­ered his fyrd and prayed to his god and marched to do bat­tle. First he faced us by the sea, then, hear­ing that Ivar was march­ing around the edge of the great wa­tery wastes west of the Gewæsc, he turned about to con­front him.

Ub­ba then led our fleet up the Gewæsc and we nosed in­to one of the rivers un­til the chan­nel was so nar­row our oars could not be used, and then men towed the boats, wad­ing through waist­deep wa­ter un­til we could go no far­ther and there we left the ships un­der guard while the rest of us followed sog­gy paths through end­less marsh­land un­til, at long last, we came to high­er ground. No one knew where we were, on­ly that if we went south we had to reach the road along which Ed­mund had marched to con­front Ivar. Cut that road and we would trap him be­tween our forces and Ivar’s army.

Which is pre­cise­ly what hap­pened. Ivar fought him, shield wall against shield wall, and we knew none of it un­til the first East An­glian fu­gi­tives came stream­ing east­ward to find an­oth­er shield wall wait­ing for them. They scat­tered rather than fight us, we ad­vanced, and from the few pris­on­ers we took we dis­cov­ered that Ivar had beat­en them eas­ily. That was confirmed next day when the first horse­men from Ivar’s forces reached us.

King Ed­mund fled south­ward. East An­glia was a big coun­try, he could eas­ily have found refuge in a fortress, or else he could have gone to Wes­sex, but in­stead he put his faith in God and took shel­ter in a small monastery at Dic. The monastery was lost in the wet­lands and per­haps he be­lieved he would nev­er be found there, or else, as I heard, one of the monks promised him that God would shroud the monastery in a per­pet­ual fog in which the pa­gans would get lost, but the fog nev­er came and the Danes ar­rived in­stead.

Ivar, Ub­ba, and their broth­er, Half­dan, rode to Dic, tak­ing half their army, while the oth­er half set about paci­fy­ing East An­glia, which meant rap­ing, burn­ing, and killing un­til the peo­ple sub­mit­ted, which most did swift­ly enough. East An­glia, in short, fell as eas­ily as Mer­cia, and the on­ly bad news for the Danes was that there had been un­rest in Northum­bria. Ru­mors spoke of some kind of re­volt, Danes had been killed, and Ivar want­ed that ris­ing quenched, but he dared not leave East An­glia so soon af­ter cap­tur­ing it, so at Dic he made a pro­pos­al to King Ed­mund that would leave Ed­mund as king just as Burghred still ruled over Mer­cia.

The meet­ing was held in the monastery’s church, which was a sur­pris­ing­ly large hall made of tim­ber and thatch, but with great leather pan­els hang­ing on the walls. The pan­els were paint­ed with gaudy scenes. One of the pic­tures showed naked folk tum­bling down to hell where a mas­sive ser­pent with a fanged mouth sw­al­lowed them up.

“Corpserip­per,” Rag­nar said with a shud­der.

“Corpserip­per?”

“A ser­pent that waits in Ni­fl­heim,” he ex­plained, touch­ing his ham­mer amulet. Ni­fl­heim, I knew, was a kind of Norse hell, but un­like the Chris­tian hell Ni­fl­heim was icy cold. “CorpseRip­per feeds on the dead,” Rag­nar went on, “but he al­so gnaws at the tree of life. He wants to kill the whole world and bring time to an end.” He touched his ham­mer again.

An­oth­er pan­el, be­hind the al­tar, showed Christ on the cross, and next to it was a third paint­ed leather pan­el that fas­ci­nat­ed Ivar. A man, naked but for a loin­cloth, had been tied to a stake and was be­ing used as a tar­get by archers. At least a score of ar­rows had punc­tured his white flesh, but he still had a saint­ly ex­pres­sion and a se­cret smile as though, de­spite his trou­bles, he was quite en­joy­ing him­self.

“Who is that?” Ivar want­ed to know.

“The blessed Saint Se­bas­tian.” King Ed­mund was seat­ed in front of the al­tar, and his in­ter­preter pro­vid­ed the an­swer. Ivar, skull eyes star­ing at the paint­ing, want­ed to know the whole sto­ry, and Ed­mund re­count­ed how the blessed Saint Se­bas­tian, a Ro­man sol­di­er, had re­fused to re­nounce his faith and so the em­per­or had or­dered him shot to death with ar­rows. “Yet he lived!” Ed­mund said ea­ger­ly.

“He lived be­cause God pro­tect­ed him and God be praised for that mer­cy.”

“He lived?” Ivar asked sus­pi­cious­ly.

“So the em­per­or had him clubbed to death in­stead,” the in­ter­preter fin­ished the tale.

“So he didn’t live?”

“He went to heav­en,” King Ed­mund said, “so he lived.”

Ub­ba in­ter­vened, want­ing to have the concept of heav­en ex­plained to him, and Ed­mund ea­ger­ly sketched its de­lights, but Ub­ba spat in de­ri­sion when he re­al­ized that the Chris­tian heav­en was Val­hal­la with­out any of the amuse­ments. “And Chris­tians want to go to heav­en?” he asked in disbelief.

“Of course,” the in­ter­preter said.

Ub­ba sneered. He and his two broth­ers were at­tend­ed by as many Dan­ish war­ri­ors as could cram them­selves in­to the church, while King Ed­mund had an en­tourage of two priests and six monks who all lis­tened as Ivar pro­posed his set­tle­ment. King Ed­mund could live, he could rule in East An­glia, but the chief fortress­es were to be gar­risoned by Danes, and Danes were to be grant­ed what­ev­er land they re­quired, ex­cept for roy­al land. Ed­mund would be ex­pect­ed to pro­vide hors­es for the Dan­ish army, coin and food for the Dan­ish war­ri­ors, and his fyrd, what was left of it, would march un­der Dan­ish or­ders. Ed­mund had no sons, but his chief men, those who lived, had sons who would be­come hostages to en­sure that the East An­glians kept the terms Ivar pro­posed.

“And if I say no?” Ed­mund asked.

Ivar was amused by that. “We take the land any­way.”

The king con­sult­ed his priests and monks. Ed­mund was a tall, spare man, bald as an egg though he was on­ly about thir­ty years old. He had pro­trud­ing eyes, a pursed mouth, and a per­pet­ual frown. He was wear­ing a white tu­nic that made him look like a priest him­self. “What of God’s church?” he fi­nal­ly asked Ivar.

“What of it?”

“Your men have des­ecrat­ed God’s al­tars, slaugh­tered his ser­vants, de­filed his im­age, and stolen his trib­ute!” The king was an­gry now. One of his hands was clenched on the arm of his chair that was set in front of the al­tar, while the oth­er hand was a fist that beat time with his ac­cu­sa­tions.

“Your god can­not look af­ter him­self?” Ub­ba en­quired.

“Our god is a mighty god,” Ed­mund declared, “the cre­ator of the world, yet he al­so al­lows evil to ex­ist to test us.”

“Amen,” one of the priests mur­mured as Ivar’s in­ter­preter trans­lat­ed the words.

“He brought you,” the king spat, “pa­gans from the north! Jere­mi­ah fore­told this!”

“Jere­mi­ah?” Ivar asked, quite lost now.

One of the monks had a book, the first I had seen in many years, and he un­wrapped its leather cov­er, paged through the stiff leaves, and gave it to the king who reached in­to a pock­et and took out a small ivory point­er that he used to in­di­cate the words he want­ed.“Quia malum ego,” he thun­dered, the pale point­er mov­ing along the lines,“ad­duco ab aquilone et con­tri­tionem mag­nam!”

He stopped there, glar­ing at Ivar, and some of the Danes, im­pressed by the force­ful­ness of the king’s words, even though none of them un­der­stood a sin­gle one of them, touched their ham­mer charms. The priests around Ed­mund looked re­proach­ful­ly at us. A spar­row flew in through a high win­dow and perched for a mo­ment on an arm of the high wood­en cross that stood on the al­tar. Ivar’s dread face showed no re­ac­tion to Jere­mi­ah’s words and it fi­nal­ly dawned on the East An­glian in­ter­preter, who was one of the priests, that the king’s im­pas­sioned read­ing had meant noth­ing to any of us.

“For I will bring evil from the north,” he trans­lat­ed, “and great de­struc­tion.”

“It is in the book!” Ed­mund said fierce­ly, giv­ing the vol­ume back to the monk.

“You can keep your church,” Ivar said care­less­ly.

“It is not enough!” Ed­mund said. He stood up to give his next words more force. “I will rule here,” he went on, “and I will suf­fer your pres­ence if I must, and I will pro­vide you with hors­es, food, coin, and hostages, but on­ly if you, and all of your men, sub­mit to God. You must be bap­tized!”

That word was lost on the Dan­ish interpreter, and on the king’s, and fi­nal­ly Ub­ba looked to me for help.

“You have to stand in a bar­rel of wa­ter,” I said, re­mem­ber­ing how Beoc­ca had bap­tized me af­ter my broth­er’s death, “and they pour more wa­ter over you.”

“They want to wash me?” Ub­ba asked, as­ton­ished.

I shrugged. “That’s what they do, lord.”

“You will be­come Chris­tians!” Ed­mund said, then shot me an ir­ri­tat­ed look. “We can bap­tize in the riv­er, boy. Bar­rels are not nec­es­sary.”

“They want to wash you in the riv­er,” I ex­plained to Ivar and Ub­ba, and the Danes laughed. Ivar thought about it. Stand­ing in a riv­er for a few min­utes was not such a bad thing, es­pe­cial­ly if it meant he could hur­ry back to quell what­ev­er trou­ble af­flict­ed Northum­bria. “I can go on wor­ship­ping Odin once I’m washed?” he asked.

“Of course not!” Ed­mund said an­gri­ly. “There is on­ly one God!”

“There are many gods,” Ivar snapped back, “many! Ev­ery­one knows that.”

“There is on­ly one God, and you must serve him.”

“But we’re win­ning,” Ivar ex­plained patient­ly, al­most as if he talked to a child, “which means our gods are beat­ing your one god.”

The king shud­dered at this aw­ful heresy.

“Your gods are false gods,” he said. “They are turds of the dev­il, they are evil things who will bring dark­ness to the world, while our god is great, he is all pow­er­ful, he is mag­nif­icent.”

“Show me,” Ivar said.

Those two words brought si­lence. The king, his priests, and his monks all stared at Ivar in ev­ident puz­zle­ment.

“Prove it,” Ivar said, and his Danes mur­mured their sup­port of the idea. King Ed­mund blinked, ev­ident­ly lost for in­spi­ra­tion, then had a sud­den idea and point­ed at the leather pan­el on which was paint­ed Saint Se­bas­tian’s ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing an archer’s tar­get. “Our god spared the blessed Saint Se­bas­tian from death by ar­rows,” Ed­mund said, “which is proof enough, is it not?”

“But the man still died,” Ivar point­ed out.

“On­ly be­cause that was God’s will.”

Ivar thought about that. “So would your god pro­tect you from my ar­rows?” He asked.

“If it is his will, yes.”

“So let’s try,” Ivar pro­posed. “We shall shoot ar­rows at you, and if you sur­vive then we’ll all be washed.”

Ed­mund stared at the Dane, won­der­ing if he was se­ri­ous, then looked ner­vous when he saw that Ivar was not jok­ing. The king opened his mouth, found he had noth­ing to say, and closed it again, then one of his tonsured monks mur­mured to him and he must have been try­ing to per­suade the king that God was sug­gest­ing this or­deal in or­der to ex­tend his church, and that a mir­acle would re­sult, and the Danes would be­come Chris­tians and we would all be friends and end up singing to­geth­er on the high platform in heav­en. The king did not look en­tire­ly con­vinced by this ar­gu­ment, if that was in­deed what the monk was pro­pos­ing, but the Danes want­ed to at­tempt the mir­acle now and it was no longer up to Edmund to ac­cept or refuse the tri­al.

A dozen men shoved the monks and priests aside while more went out­side to find bows and ar­rows. The king, trapped in his de­fense of God, was kneel­ing at the al­tar, pray­ing as hard as any man has ev­er prayed. The Danes were grin­ning. I was en­joy­ing it. I think I rather hoped to see a mir­acle, not be­cause I was a Chris­tian, but be­cause I just want­ed to see a mir­acle. Beoc­ca had of­ten told me about mir­acles, stress­ing that they were the re­al proof of Chris­tian­ity’s truths, but I had nev­er seen one. No one had ev­er walked on the wa­ter at Beb­ban­burg and no lep­ers were healed there and no an­gels had filled our night skies with blaz­ing glo­ry, but now, per­haps, I would see the pow­er of God that Beoc­ca had for­ev­er preached to me. Bri­da just want­ed to see Ed­mund dead.

“Are you ready?” Ivar de­mand­ed of the king.

Ed­mund looked at his priests and monks and I won­dered if he was about to sug­gest that one of them should re­place him in this test of God’s pow­er. Then he frowned and looked back to Ivar. “I will ac­cept your pro­pos­al,” he said.

“That we shoot ar­rows at you?”

“That I re­main king here.”

“But you want to wash me first.”

“We can dis­pense with that,” Ed­mund said.

“No,” Ivar said. “You have claimed your god is all pow­er­ful, that he is the on­ly god, so I want it proved. If you are right then all of us will be washed. Are we agreed?” This ques­tion was asked of the Danes, who roared their ap­proval.

“Not me,” Ravn said, “I won’t be washed.”

“We will all be washed!” Ivar snarled, and I re­al­ized he tru­ly was in­ter­est­ed in the out­come of the test, more in­ter­est­ed, in­deed, than he was in mak­ing a quick and con­ve­nient peace with Ed­mund. All men need the sup­port of their god and Ivar was try­ing to dis­cov­er whether he had, all these years, been wor­ship­ping at the wrong shrine. “Are you wear­ing ar­mor?” he asked Ed­mund.

“No.”

“Best to be sure,” Ub­ba in­ter­vened and glanced at the fa­tal paint­ing. “Strip him,” he or­dered. The king and the church­men protest­ed, but the Danes would not be de­nied and King Ed­mund was stripped stark naked. Bri­da en­joyed that. “He’s puny,” she said. Ed­mund, the butt of laugh­ter now, did his best to look dig­ni­fied. The priests and monks were on their knees, pray­ing, while six archers took their stance a dozen paces from Ed­mund.

“We are go­ing to find out,” Ivar told us, stilling the laugh­ter, “whether the En­glish god is as pow­er­ful as our Dan­ish gods. If he is, and if the king lives, then we shall become Chris­tians, all of us!”

“Not me,” Ravn said again, but qui­et­ly so that Ivar could not hear. “Tell me what happens, Uhtred.”

It was soon told. Six ar­rows hit, the king screamed, blood spat­tered the al­tar, he fell down, he twitched like a gaffed salmon, and six more ar­rows thumped home. Ed­mund twitched some more, and the archers kept on shoot­ing, though their aim was bad be­cause they were half help­less with laugh­ter, and they went on shoot­ing un­til the king was as full of feath­ered shafts as a hedge­hog has spikes. And he was quite dead by then. He was blood­ied, his white skin redlaced, open­mouthed, and dead. His god had failed him mis­er­ably.

Nowa­days, of course, that sto­ry is nev­er told; in­stead chil­dren learn how brave Saint Ed­mund stood up to the Danes, de­mand­ed their con­ver­sion, and was mur­dered. So now he is a mar­tyr and a saint, war­bling hap­pi­ly in heav­en, but the truth is that he was a fool and talked him­self in­to martyrdom.

The priests and monks wailed, so Ivar ordered them killed as well; then he decreed that Earl Go­drim, one of his chiefs, would rule in East An­glia and that Half­dan would sav­age the coun­try to quench the last sparks of re­sis­tance. Go­drim and Half­dan would be giv­en a third of the army to keep East An­glia qui­et, while the rest of us would re­turn to sub­due the un­rest in Northum­bria. So now East An­glia was gone.

And Wes­sex was the last king­dom of England.

The British are coming

Robert Murphy comments on Facebook:

Now people are arguing with me about whether the government has plans on how it would implement martial law, if it had to. Of *course* they have such plans. They developed a plan for taking out Great Britain. That's what these people think their *job* is. Don't you people watch movies?

War Plan Red

My thoughts:

There was once a point when having heard something conspiracy-like about USA being an evil empire (whether from crazy American liberals or Russians or Soviet books), I would roll my eyes. "Sure, it's not perfect, but..."

Then came a point when I realized that all those cynical things being said about the USA being a wannabe policeman of the world for the purpose of fulfilling the interests of a few major corporations may not be so crazy after all.

I guess I have passed that point by now. When I read about US having had a secret plan of fighting the British Empire, I am not even surprised...

I mean, look at these. There is a Russian obscene joke about a little boy looking through a keyhole into his parents' bedroom and exclaiming: "And they tell me not to pick my nose!" American presidents talk about international threats to peace, while USA probably at this point has a contingency plan of taking over the moon.

Martial law? Meh...

False sense of safety

*

The worst invention in the Western Civilization's recent history was a result of Americans' attempt to reduce fatalities from road accidents. They introduced the inflatable airbag into the cars. Now the passengers drive, having a sense of safety.

If I were trying to reduce the accidents, I would put a sharp knife in the middle of the steering wheel. And that would reduce the accidents, because, by G-d, people would be driving carefully now.

-- Hugh Hendry, British hedge funds manager (and a famous critic of the government's attempts to manage the economy)

The point of the above quote is that by creating agencies that manage our safety for us, without our choice, the government makes us less safe. First, the agencies like FDA are extremely inefficient and in general bad at what they're trying to do, as a result of being monopolies. But more severely, they prevent us from caring for our own lives and safety.

As a result, you have attempts at logical arguments that state that without FDA, unsafe drugs and food would fill the markets, because the people wouldn't have anyone watching out for them (while the businesses would of course care more about selling the drugs and not about the safety of their customers). The people who make them cannot imagine that someone might want to care for his own safety, relying (if necessary) on private inspection agencies whose reputation he would keep an eye on.


And I think, in the end, that is the worst result of socialism: it changes the culture. It creates a nation of slaves, of people who are similar to a 30-year-old who lives with his parents and is unable to make a decision himself about his life. (As I have written before, studies show that children who were given some small allowances and allowed to manage their purchases themselves grew up to be more responsible adults.)

This is the worst result of American and European governments' policies. We see this culture of dependent junkies in Greece today. When their government attempts to cut down on spending, they come out to streets and protest, since they are not getting the free pie.

The same thing happened in the Roman Empire: in an attempt to please the public and win popularity, the government created welfare programs, feeding and entertaining the masses for free (the source of the 'bread and circuses' expression). Unfortunately, this could not be sustained forever. In an attempt to pay for the ever-increasing demands of the public, Roman government debased the currency, creating massive economic crisis that spanned the centuries and was one of the reasons for the downfall of the Empire.

In my opinion, unless drastic change of course is undertaken (by the people themselves -- for the government will never change itself for the better), both American and European societies are headed the same way. They will destroy themselves from the inside, degenerating socially, economically, and culturally.

___________________________
* source of image

Dancing and fashion in a century

Definitely the 20th century will be known as the Little Dark Age. I think this is exemplified not just in politics, but also in fashion and dance/music. The clip below shows a man and woman being dressed in clothes of every sub-period from early 20th century to our times and doing the popular dance moves of the time.

I can’t really comment about the clothes (although to me, they eventually start looking not just more casual, but also more random and less thought-out), but after a certain point (after the War... or, should I say, after the reign of FDR), the music becomes more like sounds of a grandfather clock falling down the stairs, while the dancing looks increasingly more like epilepsy.

(This video obviously shows a man and a woman dancing. In the later parts of the video, the dancing is somewhat suggestive, but not pornographic. One could argue that since one is watching this video for illustrative/educational purposes, it's not, strictly speaking, ossur, but those who are makpid about such things, beware.)



Don’t get me wrong. Nobody who has seen me dress could ever accuse me of being fashion-conscious. My idea of a comfortable clothing is jeans with a striped short-sleeved collared shirt (and your regular penguin look for Shabbos with the simplest shirt and shoes possible). And my idea of dancing is a bunch of men in a circle with hands on each other’s shoulders.

Western culture is not my culture. And a spider’s web is not my idea of a house. But I can objectively observe that a spider’s web is becoming more intricate and laid with meaning or purpose as the time passes... or less so.

Turks vs. British looters

One of the comments to my previous post about lootings in London said:

I think your point [about self-defense] definitely has some validity to it, but I believe it's too late for that at this point for what's going on in London. If people did take to the streets today, I think it would only exacerbate an already out of control situation. [...] Violence breeds violence is an appropriate phrase here. Sure, as a preventative measure it might work really well, but it can't be encouraged once the violence has already started. I don't think that would help at all.

Here is a video of Turkish store owners from London defending themselves and their stores quite successfully from the looters, while the police drive on in their cars and do not get involved:
 

Meanwhile, the UK Prime Minister acknowledged that his police was useless and incompetent.

Former Cabinet minister Sir Malcolm Rifkind also raised concerns that officers were instructed to "stand and observe looting".

I repeat the questions I've asked in many different contexts:

1) If this were a CEO of an insurance/protection company, whose personal profits depended on how well his company does its job, would this happen?

2) If there were a few competing policing agencies, whose customers, in case of a given agency's incompetence, would switch to the other agencies (the way people switch from one cell phone company to another or switch to Apple after their PC has crashed one too many times), would this happen?

3) Would this happen in Texas?

Also, from here:

The Mumbai massacre could happen in London tomorrow; but probably it could not have happened to Londoners 100 years ago. 

In January 1909 two such anarchists, lately come from an attempt to blow up the president of France, tried to commit a robbery in north London, armed with automatic pistols. Edwardian Londoners, however, shot back – and the anarchists were pursued through the streets by a spontaneous hue-and-cry. The police, who could not find the key to their own gun cupboard, borrowed at least four pistols from passers-by, while other citizens armed with revolvers and shotguns preferred to use their weapons themselves to bring the assailants down. 

Today we are probably more shocked at the idea of so many ordinary Londoners carrying guns in the street than we are at the idea of an armed robbery. But the world of Conan Doyle’s Dr Watson, pocketing his revolver before he walked the London streets, was real. The arming of the populace guaranteed rather than disturbed the peace. 

That armed England existed within living memory; but it is now so alien to our expectations that it has become a foreign country. Our image of an armed society is conditioned instead by America: or by what we imagine we know about America. It is a skewed image, because (despite the Second Amendment) until recently in much of the US it has been illegal to bear arms outside the home or workplace; and therefore only people willing to defy the law have carried weapons. 

In the past two decades the enactment of “right to carry” legislation in the majority of states, and the issue of permits for the carrying of concealed firearms to citizens of good repute, has brought a radical change. Opponents of the right to bear arms predicted that right to carry would cause blood to flow in the streets, but the reverse has been true: violent crime in America has plummeted. 

There are exceptions: Virginia Tech, the site of the 2007 massacre of 32 people, was one local “gun-free zone” that forbade the bearing of arms even to those with a licence to carry. 

In Britain we are not yet ready to recall the final liberty of the subject listed by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England as underpinning all others: “The right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence.” We would still not be ready to do so were the Mumbai massacre to happen in London tomorrow. 

“Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India,” Mahatma Gandhi said, “history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.” The Mumbai massacre is a bitter postscript to Gandhi’s comment. D’Souza now laments his own helplessness in the face of the killers: “I only wish I had had a gun rather than a camera.”

British are strange

We are now, have always been, and I hope shall always be hated by the French.

— Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

The more British, the stranger.



I remember again the quote from Gettysburg:

Well, if he's an angel, all right then... But he damn well must be a killer angel. Colonel, darling, you're a lovely man. I see a vast great difference between us, yet I admire you, lad. You're an idealist, praise be. 

The truth is, Colonel... There is no "divine spark". There's many a man alive no more of value than a dead dog. Believe me. When you've seen them hang each other the way I have back in the Old Country. Equality? What I'm fighting for is to prove I'm a better man than many of them. 

Where have you seen this "divine spark" in operation, Colonel? Where have you noted this magnificent equality? No two things on Earth are equal or have an equal chance. Not a leaf, not a tree. There's many a man worse than me, and some better... But I don't think race or country matters a damn. What matters, Colonel... is justice. 

Which is why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved. I'm Kilrain... and I damn all gentlemen. There is only one aristocracy... and that is right here [points to his head].

Storming the stronghold:



Classic scene with Wellington:

Sisu

“Have you heard of Finnish sisu?” asks a character in “Mortlake” — and it turns out that sisu is a sort of stamina or staying-power which the Finns have had to develop as a result of living next door to the Russians.
— Nigel Dennis, New York Times Book Review

When my car’s engine was threatening to stop as I was driving in the darkness to NYC, I was thinking of this clip. Not because of all the driving prowess, but because of what they said about sisu — a Finish version of guts, spine and other organs symbolizing courage and determination.

Lesson over, we stopped for a cup of hot raindeer blood [not really] and talked about why the Fins are so suited for motorsports.
— Tell me a bit about sisu. What’s sisu?
— Sisu in English means “courage”. What to a Fin is courage. Let me give you an example. Climbing up this tree. And then jumping down from there. Now that doesn’t mean sisu. It’s not courage.
— That’s stupidity.
— Exactly. Now, sisu we can relate very much to in motorracing. For example, you are driving a rally car in a forest extremely very fast. And you need courage to break light, to go throttle very early or go very close to the apex of the corners...

Now, I didn’t need to do any of that. I just needed to keep driving. In a way, it took more sisu (if I have any — I was born just across the border from Finland) than driving through ice on I-84E that I did last winter.

A little more sisu:

Liberals, Tories and liberty

From the preface (by Albert Jay Nock) to Herbert Spencer’s The Man Versus the State:

Spencer ends The New Toryism with a prediction which American readers today will find most interesting, if they bear in mind that it was written [ninety five] years ago in England and primarily for English readers. He says:

The laws made by Liberals are so greatly increasing the compulsions and restraints exercised over citizens, that among Conservatives who suffer from this aggressiveness there is growing up a tendency to resist it. Proof is furnished by the fact that the “Liberty and Property Defense League”, largely consisting of Conservatives, has taken for its motto “Individualism versus Socialism”. So that if the present drift of things continues, it may by-and-by really happen that the Tories will be defenders of liberties which the Liberals, in pursuit of what they think popular welfare, trample under foot.

This prophecy has already been fulfilled in the United States.

And earlier:

Spencer shows that the early Liberal was consistently for cutting down the State's coercive power over the citizen, wherever this was possible. He was for reducing to a minimum the number of points at which the State might make coercive interventions upon the individual. He was for steadily enlarging the margin of existence within which the citizen might pursue and regulate his own activities as he saw fit, free of State control or State supervision. Liberal policies and measures, as originally conceived, were such as reflected these aims. The Tory, on the other hand, was opposed to these aims, and his policies reflected this opposition.
        In general terms, the Liberal was consistently inclined towards the individualist philosophy of society, while the Tory was consistently inclined towards the Statist philosophy.
        Spencer shows moreover that as a matter of practical policy, the early Liberal proceeded towards the realization of his aims by the method of repeal. He was not for making new laws, but for repealing old ones. It is most important to remember this. Wherever the Liberal saw a law which enhanced the State's coercive power over the citizen, he was for repealing it and leaving its place blank. There were many such laws on the British statute-books, and when Liberalism came into power it repealed an immense grist of them.
        Spencer must be left to describe in his own words, as he does in the course of this essay, how in the latter half of the [19th] century British Liberalism went over bodily to the philosophy of Statism, and abjuring the political method of repealing existent coercive measures, proceeded to outdo the Tories in constructing new coercive measures of ever-increasing particularity.
        This piece of British political history has great value for American readers, because it enables them to see how closely American Liberalism has followed the same course. It enables them to interpret correctly the significance of Liberalism's influence upon the direction of our public life in the last half-century, and to perceive just what it is to which that influence has led, just what the consequences are which that influence has tended to bring about, and just what are the further consequences which may be expected to ensue.

Now, the bit about repealing earlier-existing laws vs. creating new laws is interesting to me. In the earlier post called “Evolution of Liberal Reform”, I earlier quoted Arbat (translated from Russian):

All starts with the leftists finding a “Problem”. Oftentimes the Problem is not really a problem. For instance they think that asset inequality is a problem. Even though it is the main stimulus for the economy’s development. To call it a problem is similar to calling voltage difference in the electric grid a problem that needs to be corrected as soon as possible, so that there is no difference in electric potentials at all. [For those less physically inclined, replace electric grid with a ski resort and the voltage difference with the height difference between the top and the bottom of the hill.]

Having identified the Problem, leftists propose a Plan. Oftentimes the Plan involves people giving up some kind of freedom and the government, in turn, forbidding the Problem away. As a rule, the freedom is indeed taken away. It’s the only part that goes according to the Plan. The original “Problem” remains the same, but in addition to it arise a number of “unforeseen side effects”. Which are of course presented as the next set of “Problems”, which are treated with new Plans (instead of getting rid of the original plan, which caused the problems in the first place), and so on.

Soup?!

“You dare to presume upon a sick girl with soup?!”

I wish I could say this was the first time I have ever heard this line.

[video removed due to copyright reasons; therefore, a different one:]

With relish

O tell me where is fancy bred?

Or in the heart, or in the head?

— William Shakespeare

O tell me where is fancy bread?

At Rourke's the baker's, it is said.

— James Joyce

An excerpt:

English vs. French

Richard Sharpe: Those men who’ve fought in a big battle before, one pace forward.

[no one moves]

Richard Sharpe: This place is called Talavera. There’s going to be a battle here tomorrow. You’ll fight in it... maybe even die in it. But you won’t see it.

[explosion]

Richard Sharpe: There’s a lot of smoke in a battle. Our cannon, their cannon. Our shot, their shell. Our volleys, their volleys.

[shots]

Richard Sharpe: You don’t see a battle. You hear it.

Black powder blasting by the ton on all sides. Black smoke blinding you and choking you and making you vomit.

Then the French come out of the smoke — not in a line, but in a column. And they march towards our thin line, kettledrums hammering like hell and a golden eagle blazing overhead.

They march slowly, and it takes them a long time to reach you, and you can’t see them in smoke. But you can hear the drums. They march out of the smoke, and you fire a volley. And the front rank of the column falls, and the next rank steps over them, with drums hammering, and the column smashes your line like a hammer breaking glass... and Napoleon has won another battle.

But if you don't run — if you stand until you can smell the garlic, and fire volley after volley, three rounds a minute — then they slow down. They stop. And then they run away. All you’ve got to do is stand and fire three rounds a minute. Now, you and I know you can fire three rounds a minute. But can you stand?

On innovation in language

A very interesting podcast by Stephen Fry on pedantry in language vs. freedom to innovate and break rules. If you are a member of the totalitarian regime that takes it name from a certain fruit, you can download it here for free. Otherwise, you can listen to it (or download it) here:




Now, Stephen Fry (and I shall really write more about this later) can be seen as a bit of an authority on the subject because of his own — immediately apparent — superior command of English tongue. His vocabulary, grammar and style are remarkable, and not, at the same time, at the expense of clarity.

Therefore, what he says is all the more interesting: he is against pedantry in language. He confesses he had to break himself out of it, but, nevertheless, he intensely dislikes the people who complain about others being wrong in grammar, usage, punctuation or the like.

Not only because he himself believes it normal — even most wonderful — that the language changes, adopts to new cultures, environments and circumstances, but also because he is irritated that these people worship rules for their own sake, and no evidence points to them enjoying the language.


My thoughts on the talk?

First of all, I liked it very much. And I agree with its spirit. I do think myself that it is wonderful to use the language creatively and “own” it, as it were. At the same time, I personally think it absurd to say that you can ignore the rules, the convention and the tradition completely. Not because I worship these phenomena for their own sake (people who have been in close communication with me know this to be quite opposite from the truth), but because they are good tools which get the job done. Effectively. More effectively than lack of rules.

The famous quote by Picasso goes something like: “It took me twenty years to learn to paint like an artist. It took me a lifetime to learn to paint like a child.” But he had to learn how to paint like an artist first! One has to know the rules in order to know how to break them. There is a world of difference between a pianist who reinvents a work of Bach (within the boundaries of classical tradition — or not) to suit her own style, personality, as well as the thoughts and feelings on the particular work, and me just banging on the piano. In the first case it is a light that was allowed to become expressed in a new vessel. Something wonderful. Something new. A creation ex nihilo. In the second case it is just noise. Nonsense.

I really do think that understanding why passive voice is to be avoided (pun intended — twice) allows one to use one’s sentences more effectively. And, if one so desires, one can break this rule. But, he must know it first to understand what he is breaking and why. (And the same goes for starting sentences with conjunctions.) As Rabbi Paltiel once said, it is not quite the same for a cow not to know G-d and, lehavdil, for a tzaddik not to know G-d. The former is just a product of mere ignorance. The latter is a case of submission to something that goes beyond the structure and the fabric of reality.

My main point is: Stephen Fry is right. Language needs to be enjoyed. It is more than just a form of communication. It is an art. (Although, even if used only for the means of communication, when done creatively, language can be incredibly forceful.) Having said that, the rules exist for a reason — they are not mere tradition necessarily. They are a means for expressing thoughts more effectively.

And knowing how to balance innovation with tradition is both an art and a science. The way to acquire this skill is through study and practice. Not through ignorance.

A final thought: I think one will find that most great thinkers, movers, creators, shapers and leaders, both in the Jewish and, lehavdil, secular history, used the force and the momentum of the tradition, to which they added a spice of innovation to create the explosions of brilliance for which they are known (and which have become the meat and potatoes of Judaism).  At their times, they were criticized for being troublemakers and innovators. In our times, they are the rock of the tradition and a source of inspiration and guidance. Take anyone, from Rambam or Rabbi Yehuda Ha’Nasi, to Alter Rebbe, to the Rebbe, and see if this formula applies.

This same idea is expressed in the concept of Havaya hu ha’Elokim. G-dly Light must reach this lowly world — and for this purpose, it must be accepted and shaped by a vessel. But, in order to be a recipient for the Light, the vessel must be subservient to the Light’s purpose and message, the knowledge of where it is coming from.

United Kingdom before Margaret Thatcher

It is absolutely amazing how what seems to have been the state of the political system in the pre-Thatcher UK resembled the state of affairs in late (and crumbling) Byzantine Empire. This video shows some of the beauties of large governments:



I’ve posted this before. An excerpt from an interview of a Soviet dissident who had come to the UK just before Thatcher came to power (translated from Russian):

[After arriving to the UK] I was astonished by the extremely low level of life. Not as in the famished Soviet Union, of course, but impossible to compare with Switzerland, from which I escaped. London was filled with garbage, lines were snaking around the streets, stores were standing half-empty… The winter of 1978-79 was a winter of destruction.

The thing is: by that time, Britain was already long-ruled by socialists who destroyed the economy as only they know how. At that point, everybody was on strike — garbage collectors, transport workers… It was a sight to see! As soon as the railroad workers’ strike ended, the train drivers’ strike began. Then went the ticket collectors. Labor unions had huge power, and the country was inevitably rolling towards a cliff. I was just amazed — after Geneva I’d thought that all of the West was prospering. And it turned out that socialism got its hands on England too. Unbelievable! Such a great country brought to a level of some Bulgaria.

Fortunately, the elections were won by Margaret Thatcher. She came to power and started breaking apart socialism and saving Britain. The most difficult thing was to defeat the miners. It was unprofitable to mine coal in England, and every ton of coal was impoverishing the country. Just like in the Soviet Union — the more meat a collective farm produced, the more losses for the country’s budget. Thatcher started closing down the mines; the miners started striking, since they were accustomed to robbing their own country, being parasites on it. But the Iron Lady did not give up.

It wasn’t just the miners either! Dockers were the second major enemy. All the world by that time was already using high-efficiency container unloading of ships. But English dockers’ union was against the innovations, because container unloading increased productivity, leading to firing of additional workers. Sometimes it was like a comics strip: container-carrying ships would arrive at Dutch Rotterdam; there, everything was unloaded on trains and delivered to England by railroad. While the dockers were still getting paid, since the labor union forced this out of the business owners.

Or another idiocy… Socialists decided to defend English cinematography. Before, cameras were inefficient and had to be assisted by three people. Then cameras became better and could be served only by one person. But the socialists enacted a law where three people had to work on a camera anyway! What, should we fire a worker because of some progress?! At that point English cinematography could not compete with Hollywood and lost the juice.

Socialism is a national suicide. And Margaret with her iron hand started to choke it, saving her country. She showed utmost will not to give up. And she won. After that, the country started climbing out of the nightmare. And now England is one of the world leaders. It blossomed virtually in front of my eyes. No wonder Russian oligarchs come here…

Yet, socialism is not dead everywhere. [He goes on to give some modern examples where unions or state-sponsored monopolies drive prices up and slow down the progress.]

Find ten differences

...between the Church of England and the Church of Reform and/or Conservative Judaism. (Although, based on the dvar Torah I heard this Shabbos in the local presumably Orthodox shull... well, never mind...) Starting 0:30:



“...theology is a device for enabling the agnostics to stay within the Church.”

— One of them wants to get G-d out of Church of England, and the other one wants to get the Queen out.
— Well, the Queen is inseparable from the Church of England.
— I see. What about G-d?
— I think He is what’s called “an optional extra”.

See also this, starting from 1:26:



— I’ve heard he is very religious.
— Well, it’s all right for a bishop, is it not?

The best profession

— You... uh... don’t know how I can raise fifty quid somehow, do you?
— Work?
— Bertie!.. No, I must think of some way. I need to put at least fifty quid on Ocean Breeze.

A microscope that is used as a door stop is a sadly lacking in the full expression of its potential. The same is true regarding a human being — not in the sense of one being a door stop, but in the sense of one not fully expressing the essence of what makes him unique amongst all creatures.

A philosopher (to use the term loosely) once pondered what professions express this potential to its fullest and reached a conclusion that they are those that require thinking, research or creativity. E.g., the profession of a scientist or a mathematician. Or the profession of an artist, a writer, or a musician. Of course, any profession can allow a person to express both his intelligence and creativity, and by participating in this profession then a person does not only earn a living but lives up to his title of a human being, a Homo sapiens (“a thinking person” literally — to differentiate one from Homo erectus, whose main distinction from the rest of the animal kingdom is in his upright posture).

Another philosopher, upon listening to the first one list the professions, remarked: “Surely you are forgetting the best profession of all — that of an heir.” More about it here (starting 0:54).

All of the above refers to the nations of the world. What about the Jews?

Well, although being a thinking and creative individual is of course a virtuous characteristic for a Jew, it does not touch the essence of who he is. Rabbi Gottlieb remarks that after having been introduced to someone at a cocktail party, the first questions to ask him or her are: “Where are you from?” and “What do you do [for a living]?” Because there is a difference between speaking to a person from California and from Texas. And there is a difference between speaking to a plumber and a cardiologist (despite the superficially similar nature of their professions).

Nevertheless, finding out about a frum Jew’s profession is useless. Avraham Avinu was a shepherd. Hillel chopped wood. Rashi was a wine merchant. Rambam was a doctor. The Lubavitcher Rebbe was an electric engineer. Therefore what?

My point goes beyond the fact that learning Torah and observance of mitzvos (and levels of and views on thereof) define frum Jews much better than the methods for earning a living. Returning to the above statement that being an intelligent and creative being defines the essence of who a human being is, one can say that being a servant of Hashem defines the essence of who a Jew is.

A Jewish soul is a part of G-d’s Essence. It resides in the upper spiritual realms and then descends into this world with but one purpose: to make it a dwelling place for G-d. It must learn Torah in this world, and it must do mitzvos with the objects of this world. For this purpose it must interact with the world — and according to the philosophy of Chabad, we do not shy away from this interaction. But to allow the world define and shape who we are, on any level, is foolish. If that happens, G-d forbid, then a Jew is worse than a microscope being used a door step. Because there is a finite distance (however great) between a microscope’s design and that of a stone, but the difference between the essence of G-d and this world is infinite.

It is up to us whether we live up to our fullest potential in our lives. And I don’t mean by the end of our lives. I mean every single moment we are in this world.

The art of proposing

I know a chossid (married for ten years already and with children, b"H) who, when the time came to propose to his kallah, asked her: “Would you like to go to the Ohel with me?” He thought himself incredibly smooth. His wife (as she confessed much later, with her husband sitting there) was thinking: “What a loser.”

Here is another excerpt from Three Men on a Bummel, this time regarding proposing. I must say, this method seems much smoother than the one above, although not without inherent dangers. It is also an example of how American English sounded to me (in terms of comprehensibility) when I just came to this here country:

A story is told of a Scotchman who, loving a lassie, desired her for his wife. But he possessed the prudence of his race. He had noticed in his circle many an otherwise promising union result in disappointment and dismay, purely in consequence of the false estimate formed by bride or bridegroom concerning the imagined perfectability of the other. He determined that in his own case no collapsed ideal should be possible. Therefore, it was that his proposal took the following form:

“I’m but a puir lad, Jennie; I hae nae siller to offer ye, and nae land.”

“Ah, but ye hae yoursel’, Davie!”

“An’ I’m wishfu’ it wa’ onything else, lassie. I’m nae but a puir ill-seasoned loon, Jennie.”

“Na, na; there’s mony a lad mair ill-looking than yoursel’, Davie.”

“I hae na seen him, lass, and I’m just a-thinkin’ I shouldna’ care to.”

“Better a plain man, Davie, that ye can depend a’ than ane that would be a speirin’ at the lassies, a-bringin’ trouble into the hame wi’ his flouting ways.”

“Dinna ye reckon on that, Jennie; it’s nae the bonniest Bubbly Jock that mak’s the most feathers to fly in the kailyard. I was ever a lad to run after the petticoats, as is weel kent; an’ it’s a weary handfu’ I’ll be to ye, I’m thinkin’.”

“Ah, but ye hae a kind heart, Davie! an’ ye love me weel. I’m sure on’t.”

“I like ye weel enoo’, Jennie, though I canna say how long the feeling may bide wi’ me; an’ I’m kind enoo’ when I hae my ain way, an’ naethin’ happens to put me oot. But I hae the deevil’s ain temper, as my mither call tell ye, an’ like my puir fayther, I’m a-thinkin’, I’ll grow nae better as I grow mair auld.”

“Ay, but ye’re sair hard upon yersel’, Davie. Ye’re an honest lad. I ken ye better than ye ken yersel’, an’ ye’ll mak a guid hame for me.”

“Maybe, Jennie! But I hae my doots. It’s a sair thing for wife an’ bairns when the guid man canna keep awa’ frae the glass; an’ when the scent of the whusky comes to me it’s just as though I hae’d the throat o’ a Loch Tay salmon; it just gaes doon an’ doon, an’ there’s nae filling o’ me.”

“Ay, but ye’re a guid man when ye’re sober, Davie.”

“Maybe I’ll be that, Jennie, if I’m nae disturbed.”

“An’ ye’ll bide wi’ me, Davie, an’ work for me?”

“I see nae reason why I shouldna bide wi’ yet Jennie; but dinna ye clack aboot work to me, for I just canna bear the thoct o’t.”

“Anyhow, ye’ll do your best, Davie? As the minister says, nae man can do mair than that.”

“An’ it’s a puir best that mine’ll be, Jennie, and I’m nae sae sure ye’ll hae ower muckle even o’ that. We’re a’ weak, sinfu’ creatures, Jennie, an’ ye’d hae some deefficulty to find a man weaker or mair sinfu’ than mysel’.”

“Weel, weel, ye hae a truthfu’ tongue, Davie. Mony a lad will mak fine promises to a puir lassie, only to break ’em an’ her heart wi’ ’em. Ye speak me fair, Davie, and I’m thinkin’ I’ll just tak ye, an’ see what comes o’t.”

Concerning what did come of it, the story is silent, but one feels that under no circumstances had the lady any right to complain of her bargain. Whether she ever did or did not—for women do not invariably order their tongues according to logic, nor men either for the matter of that—Davie, himself, must have had the satisfaction of reflecting that all reproaches were undeserved.

In tandem

Recently, I have quoted to you a story about a young couple so engrossed in a conversation that they lost track of their surroundings. Here is a similar story, but with different details.

I just want to remark on the effect that marriage has on one. Before marriage, it is likely to be so focused on one’s date as to lose sense of one’s boat. After the marriage, it becomes more likely to become focused on one’s bicycle and ignore the loss of one’s wife.

Other remarks, such as one regarding men and female dresses, are also true.

Actually, last summer, when I was in Catskill Mountains, I saw a young Breslover couple (a man and a woman) on a tandem bike. They seemed to be enjoying themselves quite a bit. As I continued going downhill (this was in the Lake Minewaska area), I saw another, slightly less enthusiastic couple: a large yeshivish-looking fellow, in a suit, going up the hill, accompanied by another yeshivish man of much thinner complexion. The men were eying people coming down the hill suspiciously, but seeing a kindred spirit in me (I was wearing my beard that day), asked me how far to the top.

And now the story:

Do you enjoy speaking like immigrants?

This was one of the funniest comments to this post:

Please speak English and use the verb “let” with an object, i.e. “My husband doesn’t let ME.” Do you enjoy speaking like immigrants??? Well, yes, I guess you do. But is doesn’t say much for your education or your job prospects.

I must say, I have always enjoyed speaking like an immigrant. I also enjoy walking, eating and drinking like an immigrant.

And now on the topic:

“I know nothing.”



“I learn it from a book.”



“Uno, dos, tres”.



“Si.”



“Fuego!”



“Typical of this place...”



“Don’t panic!”
“What else is there to do?”

DNA on PGW

Douglas Adams was incredibly funny. Some might also find him offensive, but not in American or Russian bullying way, but in that English, refined method.

One my favorite parts from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is:

"Whhhrrrr…" said Arthur Dent. He opened his eyes.
"It's dark," he said.
"Yes," said Ford Prefect, "it's dark."
"No light," said Arthur Dent. "Dark, no light."
One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the obvious, as in "It's a nice day", or "You're very tall", or "Oh dear, you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright?" At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried about the terrible number of things they didn't know about.
"Yes," he agreed with Arthur, "no light." He helped Arthur to some peanuts. "How do you feel?" he asked.

Well, here is Douglas Adams on P.G. Wodehouse and a few others in English literature. Prepare to be offended.

Socialism on the road

(Ilya Repin, “Volga Boatmen” — click on the image to enlarge)

Reading this passage:

He and three other men, so he said, were sculling a very heavily laden boat up from Maidenhead one evening, and a little above Cookham lock they noticed a fellow and a girl, walking along the towpath, both deep in an apparently interesting and absorbing conversation. They were carrying a boat-hook between them, and, attached to the boat-hook was a tow-line, which trailed behind them, its end in the water. No boat was near, no boat was in sight. There must have been a boat attached to that tow-line at some time or other, that was certain; but what had become of it, what ghastly fate had overtaken it, and those who had been left in it, was buried in mystery. Whatever the accident may have been, however, it had in no way disturbed the young lady and gentleman, who were towing. They had the boat-hook and they had the line, and that seemed to be all that they thought necessary to their work.

George was about to call out and wake them up, but, at that moment, a bright idea flashed across him, and he didn't. He got the hitcher instead, and reached over, and drew in the end of the tow-line; and they made a loop in it, and put it over their mast, and then they tidied up the sculls, and went and sat down in the stern, and lit their pipes.

And that young man and young woman towed those four hulking chaps and a heavy boat up to Marlow.

George said he never saw so much thoughtful sadness concentrated into one glance before, as when, at the lock, that young couple grasped the idea that, for the last two miles, they had been towing the wrong boat. George fancied that, if it had not been for the restraining influence of the sweet woman at his side, the young man might have given way to violent language.

The maiden was the first to recover from her surprise, and, when she did, she clasped her hands, and said, wildly:

"Oh, Henry, then WHERE is auntie?"

— has reminded me of this post by arbat:

Another study in the University of Utah: people are sat in front of a wheel and watched how they drive. Then they are given a phone and watched how their driving changes. It turns out that less than 3% drive the car as well with the phone as without.

I am not worried about the study itself, but by the conclusion that the journalists will make out of it. Or, what’s worse, the politicians cheered on by the journalists. You see, the politicians have a Pavlovian reflex in response to any “scientific” study — to ban something. The obviously idiotic reaction to this study is to ban cell phone in the cars. Completely.

Why do I consider this reflex idiotic? Well, since you’re asking — imagine that such a study were conducted not with cell phones but with radio. Or music. Or a conversation on a topic interesting to the driver.

Imagine we start measuring how a young man’s attention is decreased from having a beautiful girl next to him. Or a woman, who has a husband sitting next to her and giving her advice on how to drive. Imagine you have a child in the back who needs to be told a story. Or two kids who are trying to take the Gameboy away from each other. Or a mother-in-law?

What do you think: will these things end up being less distracting than a cell phone or more? What should we do? Ban having passengers in cars? Ban audios and CD players?

What if a problem is not in the cell phone, but in the boredom of drivers that need to find some distraction?

Or, imagine a person who needs to call somewhere. Check that his child did the homework. Or talk to a client. Or call his wife, because he forgot to tell her that tonight his friends are coming over for a game of poker. Not to call in such situations means consequences. What do you think, should we measure how much his driving skills will deteriorate?

Now, within the last year, I have rear-ended a car once, driving at a slow speed (no damage done), while stuck in traffic on Belt Parkway and looking for a ma’amor on my mp3 player.  Before that, I had almost gotten into an accident several times because of one of the reasons listed above. Also from trying to figure out where exactly my GPS was showing me to go. But never from talking on a cell phone.