Brawl Day on Capitol Hill

Whilst having my morning coffee and reading the morning computer I was hit by the news of brawling in parliament in Ukraine. A communist was going on about how they never should have ousted Yanukovych, and a couple of Ukrainian nationalists pushed him around-- always the feckin nationalists, of whichever country, starting the violence-- and a brawl broke out, and I thought, wouldn't a lot of tension be relieved if a big brawl broke out in our American legislative branches?

Here are some photos of Ukrainian parliament:

Whoops! Sorry, wrong photos. Those are photos of extremely violent 'cage rage.'

Let's try again:

Hmmm,yes, those are the right photos.
Did I say that Cage Rage looked extremely violent?
Yet, there is an element of black comedy in fighting politicians not found in cage rage. 





Anyway, brawling legislators on Capitol Hill-- it is not a completely novel idea-- it has happened before:

This was a fight, literally, about immigration. The battle goes on, though now it is only tongues lashing out at one another.

Here's another:

This was a fight over slavery. This good ole boy pro-slavery South Carolina senator beat an anti-slavery Massachusetts senator unconscious. Note the chuckling faces in the background.

You can find the other fightin legislators stories here:

 

http://voices.yahoo.com/ready-rumble-greatest-fistfights-us-congress-2129050.html?cat=9


But alas, the last of these brawls seems to have occurred in 1902. So I ask, "What if a brawling day could be organized in Congress or the Senate?"

That boring as hell channel that watches our legislators all day long would get a huge boost in ratings.

But rather than just having a legislative cage rage match to act as 'circuses' for the masses, and as a sort of catharsis for the legislators, there could be some meaningful outcome from the match between Democrats and Republicans. If the Democrats won, for example, a certain law would be passed that they've been pushing. If the Republicans won... you get the picture.

We've all had this idea before, but we usually think of it in terms of world leaders fighting, like George W. duking it out with Sadam. But that gives individual world leaders way too much power. And Putin would dominate the world for sure. He would kick everyone's ass. Merkel might give a good run for the money-- a knee to Putin's groin once or twice-- she might have Putin turning red with frustration at the humiliation he'd be suffering at her hands, but in the end he would probably have her pinned down.

Takin you down Vlad

Uhhh... (hard swallow)

I might like to see Kim Jong-Il in a match with somebody though, if he were still alive. His chubby son might be fun to watch in  a Sumo wrestling match.

Kim just before other world leader rams big stick up his butt

Anyway, while the leader-to-leader matchup might be entertaining, the results would be too decisive and ill matched.

But a team of House and Senate Republicans and Democrats pummeling one another? That would be good. There would be no more hypocrisy. Just savage beatings. Honest. And the result would only be for this or that particular law, not for world domination. And even if one side out-muscles the other, teamwork and superior strategy could win the day over muscle. For example, the Democrats, who I think are probably a bit less muscular, a bit less savage by nature, might outflank the Republicans, or do a pincer movement, or manage to divide the enemy, or something.

There would have to be some rules.

1. On Brawl day in the House and Senate, all legislators must wear their typical going to pseudo-work attire. Suits and dresses. Ties. There is nothing more entertaining than watching formally-dressed middle-aged people brawl with each other.

2. All legislators must participate. If they choose to cower in a corner, they may-- perhaps there could be a 'cowards corner' designated for the less robust, but the news crews would surely have a camera set up there to show the world exactly who is cowering.

3. No weapons except as would be considered normal wear. Rings, for example, but not brass knuckles. Canes for those who always have a cane anyway. Belts of course. A belt can be a nasty weapon, but it would be permitted.

4. The brawl would last either until one side or the other side is sprawled on the floor unconscious or has surrendered by withdrawing to their respective coward's corner. (To make it more interesting, the 'coward's corner' could have limited space, say, for only 2/3 of the legislators of a given side to cower in. That way, if the whole team-- say, all of Team Democrat-- wanted to cower, they would have to fight among themselves to squeeze in to the 'coward's corner'. So behind them would be Republicans thrashing them with their belts, and in front of them their own teammates clawing and kicking, trying to push them out.)

5. The winning side would get the law of the day passed. So if Team Republican won the day, beating half of Team Democrat into unconsciousness, and driving the other half into the 'cowards corner' , they could get a law passed that makes the poor poorer and the rich richer, or they could invade Syria and Russia and North Korea and France. Something like that.

6. All legislators must show up for work the next day, not to legislate, but for reconciliation. They could sit down and chat about the battle the previous day. One legislator, for example, marked with black eyes and belt buckle cuts, could sit with the guy who thrashed him, who is perhaps less badly beaten, and could say things like, "Johnny B., you swing a mean belt," and Johnny B. could say, "It took you forever to go down, man, I respect that." Or maybe there would be a Team Republican guy in pretty bad shape sitting with one of the few Team Democrat legislators who came out of the battle unscathed. He might say, "Damn, Nancy, did you have to bite so hard?" and she might chuckle a little  and say, "No hard feelings?" and he might wink.

7. The most important rule of all would be this one: non-violent resistance would be absolutely prohibited. Non-violent resistance would destroy the event. To have one side, say Team Republican, thrashing non-violent resisters with belts would just... well... mess it all up. You might cheer for a while if you were a Republican, but then you'd say, "whoa man, that's enough, look, they aren't thrashing back, shit, they don't even look angry, whoa guys, back off, damn," and then the whole Brawl Day would come to an end. So-- no non-violent resistance. Fight or flight only.

Cookies and Consciousness

I am reading ‘The Divine Romance’, by Paramahansa Yogananda while drinking coffee and eating triple chocolate cookies.  Elke is eating an apple. I am devouring cookies after dipping them in my coffee, northern Italian style, and Elke is devouring her apple, all of it, even the core, and I am reading about the opposite modes of material and spriritual consciousness, and about how I can test myself to see which consciousness I have, and I read these lines:

Material consciousness says to eat your apple and cookies yourself. Spiritual consciousness says to divide and share with someone else.

I freak a little and I turn around to see if Paramahansa Yogananda is in the room, watching us with our cookies and apple, and there is no one there, and I look up and in other directions but the yogi is not there, and I am about to tell Elke to stop but it is too late; the apple is gone.

He wrote this book when my mom was a kid. How does he know we are eating an apple and cookies?

The apple is gone, but I have cookies still. There are six left. 

“Cookie?” I offer, though I know Elke will refuse because she doesn’t eat cookies. 

As expected, she says "Nein, danke."

I am still scanning the room for traces of the yogi. He is on the astral plane, hovering over my shoulder.

If I read the same lines tomorrow, and I am eating toast instead of cookies, will it say in the book, 

Material consciousness says to eat your apple and toast yourself. Spiritual consciousness says to divide and share with someone else. ?

This is a test indeed, and the yogi knows it, because I am selfish about cookies. 

Spiritual consciousness says to divide and share with someone else.

Elke bought me the cookies, and said, “These are your cookies, just yours,”

and I had kept them all to myself,  knowing that here they would be safe from the boys.

For you see, the boys are also cookie monsters. They also devour cookies as if they were potato chips. 

The other day I found cookies in the kitchen, and I ate two of them with my coffee, dipping them into the coffee as they do in the north of Italy. I only ate two because they were the last two cookies. Then, later that evening, as I was strumming on the guitar, they came into this very room, and sat down together, smiling.

“Did you see cookies on the counter in the kitchen?” asked Philipp.

“Because we can’t find them, there were two cookies,” said Max.

“We are looking for them, did you see them?” asked Philipp.

There was a little uncomfortable pause as they scrutinized my countenance for a sign.

“Ah, you mean those sandwich-like cookies, with chocolate cream in the middle?” I asked.

“Yes,” they said in unison, smiling a little, scrutinizing.

“There were two?” I asked.

“Yes, there were two,” said Philipp.

“Two cookies,” said Max. “We can’t find them.”

“Did you see them?” asked Philipp.

A little pause, and I believe I must have been blinking a lot and swallowing.

“Yeah, I ate them with coffee this morning,” I blurted out. “They were sitting on the counter, you know?”

The twins laughed a bit, looking at each other and nodding, then back at me.

“Yes, of course,” said Philipp.

“Yes, they were on the counter,” said Max.

“There were only two? I thought I had left some,” I said.

“No, there were only two,” said Philipp. “Okay.”

“Yes, okay,” said Max.

“Okay,” I said, and I believe it was for this reason that Elke had bought me my very own pack of cookies.

So now I have these cookies, and the yogi is hovering over me somewhere in astral space, telling me personally through his book that I should share the cookies. 

Alas, as I have been writing these words I have eaten two more cookies. There are now but four, and I will have another cup of coffee, and I will require cookies with that cup as well.

 But… the test.  Am I of a more spiritual or material consciousness? Will I share my cookies? 

Later in the day... 

Max and Philipp have given me some cake. 

I offered cookies so now I can't change my mind. There are three left. Three triple chocolate cookies and I will share.  I will eat one more myself.

"Yo! Yogi Yogananda! I'm sharing my cookies!"

I am clearly a spiritual man.

Kamelle!

In Jülich, it is Carnival. Actually, it has been Carnival since 11:11 am, on the 11th of November-- it is what people in and around Cologne refer to as the Fifth Season, but it is peaking now, and I am in Jülich to watch the Carnival procession. I had no costume, so the neighbors have provided me with a hat for the occasion. It looks like the hat Marlon Brando wore in 'The Wild One', but it has all the colors of the rainbow on it, so I wouldn't fit in very well in a biker bar.

The crowd has gathered for the procession, and the costumes are mainly colorful and clown-like-- there is no imitation Rio de Janeiro here, as was the case in Portugal, which was ridiculous, given the Winter climate. No, the Germans of North Rhine Westphalia have their very own Carnival traditions that go way back to the Middle Ages. Prussian uniforms to mock the Prussian occupiers, for example.

With German efficiency, two cars edge along the path of the procession like lawn trimmers to force the crowd to back up a little, and the crowd remains back after the cars have passed. In most of the places I've been these past several years, the procession itself would have to force people out of the way, and if cars had passed to force the people back, the crowd would have moved in again just behind the cars, but this is Germany, and there is order. Or so I believe at that moment.

A band leads the way of the procession. The first big float is a sailing ship, towed by a farm tractor. The crowd begins to chant.

"Allah! Allah!" they are saying. And also, "Camellah! Camellah!"

There are many Turkish immigrants here, and clearly their faith has become a part of the Carnival tradition. I am impressed by the multi-culturalism.

"Allah! Allah!" I chant with the crowd. "Allah! Allah! Camellah! Bismillah! Inshallah!"

Allah is truly for everyone, as so many of my Muslim friends say.

I am then told that the chant is "Alaaf" rather than "Allah". It is the customary Carnival greeting.

"Ah, I see. And 'camellah'?" I ask.

"Kamelle. It's the Cologne dialect for 'candy'"

No matter, I change my chant to "Alaaf! Alaaf! Kamelle! Kamelle!" and I stretch out my arms, palms up, as the big ship passes by, and there are little children high above me on the float, and one of them hears my voice over all the others, and she is a child of perhaps seven years of age, and hearing my appeal to Alaaf, and hearing my plea for kamelle, she is merciful, and her tiny arm stretches out, and she opens her little fist, and candy flies through the air in my direction, and I stretch out my hand, and the mini Snicker's bar floats right to me, it is inches away, and another hand drifts into view, right in front of my face, and my mini-Snickers is intercepted, the wrath of Alaaf be upon him.

I had noticed the man who has stolen my candy as the crowd had waited for the procession. He is about my age, which for most people means a respectable age, and he looks like an accountant with children studying at the best universities. I glare at him but he gives me no acknowledgement. He pockets the mini Snicker's and ignores me, and I feel that I have suddenly been cast in shadow as the dark clouds of war pass overhead.

"Kamelle! Kamelle!" I roar, demanding now-- I will get my kamelle-- and once again the word creates an immediate response from the Kamelle angels passing by high above, and something-- a big candy bar possibly--arcs towards me-- it is rectangular, and it turns slowly as it arcs through the air as if it were on display-- and I reach out, and, almost, almost, and the hand-- the accountant's hand-- opens directly in front of my face-- and in that instant I see everything in slow motion-- the slowly turning rectangular object drifting to me, the hand wide open-- it is a pink, pale hand of average size with a wedding band on it-- and the hand closes on the object, my big candy bar-- closes and disappears from view. I glare at the accountant again, and again he ignores me. He hasn't been chanting the word--"kamelle"-- he has been standing there silently letting me make the appeals while he snatches the rewards from the air. I have an urge to flick the back of his ear as he inspects the object he has snatched away from me, and I've got my right middle finger in a circle, it's nail pressed hard against my thumb, cocked and ready to unleash against his pink ear when he hands the object over his shoulder, not even turning to see me-- just hands it back to me, and I take it-- he knows he was in the wrong-- I take it and I won't flick his ear after all-- and I look at the object, and it is not a big candy bar but a little packet of tissue paper.

"What the...?"

But I haven't got time to retaliate with an ear flick as the next float has arrived, and it is blaring that kind of music that makes you happy and want to dance, and those who are occupying it are dancing and throwing out candy, and I yell, "Kamelle! Kaaaameeeellee!", and the words are again answered by candy flying out, but not singly-- nay, not one candy but dozens of candies flying through the springtime-like sky, the cellophane glinting in the sun, a flock of candy, or a swarm perhaps, like a swarm of locusts, yet not locusts, but candy, flying to me, and yet, which candy to snatch out of the air? I want them all, haven't they been thrown to me? Mine! All mine! And an army of hands reaches out to snatch my candy away, yet some candy has gotten through the hands and they splatter like shotgun pellets on the ground, and I switch now to ground mode, bending down amidst the legs of the crowd, and I reach for a candy-- it is yellow-- lemony flavor, or butterscotch-- and it is snatched away by an elderly woman with a sack, and she puts it into her sack, and I glare at her but she acts as though I weren't there.

"What the...?"

But there, there is another, and I am down on all fours-- it is a long piece of taffy-- and I reach through someone's legs and grab one end of it but at the very same moment another hand has it by the other end-- it is another man my age, middle-aged-- a respectable age-- and he is well dressed, not even a funny hat to celebrate Carnival-- and we glare at each other for just a nano-second before the legs I am reaching through back up a bit and my head is pressing against a woman's rear end and she seems to be mildly panicking and I release my grip and the well-dressed man escapes with the taffy and I am sure at that moment that he drives an expensive Mercedes and cuts people off in traffic and gets away with it every time.

"Sorry," I say to the woman who looks very confused and does not reply.

But no time to reflect on this.

"Kamelle! Kaaameeelleee!" I shout with outstretched arms and it works again-- a child on the float is answering with a candy fired at point blank range-- a line drive straight to my head-- the accountant is distracted and the candy gets past him and I've got my hand out just in time and it's in my hand but I bobble it-- no! just like when I played second base in Little League baseball, I bobble it and it deflects from my hand to the ground and I haven't even managed to make a move for it when another hand snatches it off the ground-- "Kamelle! Kamelllllleeeee!"-- and a big rectangular object floats like a slow knuckleball and not in a predictable trajectory either, it moves left and right as if caught by the wind but I snatch it out of the air-- I've got it! It's mine! And it's a sponge-- the kind of sponge with a green scouring pad on one side, and I say again, "What the...?" and the accountant is facing me and he sees my prize and he seems to be mocking me.

Then two jumbo candy bars float through the air and a dozen hands reach for them and one hits the ground and a gray haired woman with a long-tailed coat and a tam-o-shanter on her head scrambles for the one on the ground and she gets it and hands it to me because she senses my suffering and I know there is hope for peace on Earth. She has converted me, this woman, and now I will gather candy to give it away, even to give to my enemy the accountant and that other bastard also wherever he is.

On a balcony there are people yelling "Kamelle!" and the more confident young men marching alongside a float in old Prussian uniforms hurl Snicker's bars to them but the Snicker's fall short of the mark and hit the pavement but no one below seems to have noticed them and I rush to fetch them-- not for myself, but to throw them up to those who have appealed to kamelle up on the balcony-- I have been converted and I will help promote peace in the world and I reach for one and a woman snatches it up-- she is in her thirties and not even watching the procession or making appeals to 'kamelle', just walking along-- and I scramble for the other one and she snatches it up too and she turns just enough to look at me contemptuously through the corner of her eyes and continues on her merry way and I've suddenly lost interest in the candy the same way I lost interest in making money which was also like seagulls fighting over fishheads.

But no matter, the neighbors I've come here with have a huge sack full of candy anyway and they give most of their haul to us and we go into a friend's house which is right where the procession is and we eat würst and drink beer and next year I will bring an umbrella bent the wrong way to catch all of the candy high above the merciless snatching hands and then I will hand it out to accountants and businessmen and mean old ladies and innocent children and throw it to people on balconies or maybe I'll just hoard it all for myself.

On Swimming the Gulf of Aqaba

The desert peaks and cliffs of Saudi Arabia are visible just some 20 kilometers across the Gulf of Aqaba, and they look exactly the same as the desert peaks and cliffs in Sinai. Simeon and I are sitting in plastic chairs on the flat roof above the cabanas of Sindbad Camp in Dahab, having our morning cappuccinos. It's not so easy to get a cappuccino in Dahab, not a good one anyway, but Sindbad Camp has a cappuccino machine in it's kitchen, and though the coffee is expensive-- about one euro, the price of a big breakfast-- it is good to drink while sitting in the morning sunshine looking out across the Gulf of Aqaba.

 "Maybe I’ll swim over to the Saudi side," I say. 

"Surely you jest," says Simeon with a cough. He'd been smoking a shisha pipe with a Bedouin the night before.

"I might be able to pull it off—I’m a strong swimmer," I say.

"But the water is deceptively cold," says Simeon. "Haven't you noticed that the divers all wear wetsuits?"

"Maybe I can borrow a wetsuit."

"And it’s a busy shipping channel—without an escort boat you may very well be run down by a freighter."

"I'll wear a fluorescent orange bathing cap, or maybe an escort boat would be cheap," I say.

 

"And it’s a bloody long way—the furthest you’ve swum non-stop is 4 kilometers, and that in a swimming pool— that's the sea out there, with it's currents and tides and sea monsters of all sorts."

"Mermaids, maybe," I say.

"Or giant squids," says Simeon, sipping his coffee. "And if you did manage to reach Saudi you would surely be arrested, as you would be entering the Kingdom without a visa, or anything but your bathing costume and fluorescent orange bathing cap." 

"But it is possible," I say. "There was that Ukranian girl in 2004 who did it. She’d fallen out with her parents while the family was on holiday and swum to Saudi Arabia. She was only 18. No plan, just a spontaneous, 'I think I'll swim across to Saudi Arabia.' She’d been returned to her family, but hell, she’d swum across the Gulf of Aqaba, she’ll always have that."

"She was also a Ukranian swimming champion," says Simeon. "And why would you need that, you've already walked from Portugal to Turkey, and from Port Said to Cairo, and cycled through the Alps, and all for good causes. What would the point be in swimming to Saudi Arabia?"

"A swim to ban the burkha. Unless you really want to wear it. And if you do want to wear a burkha they'll be available in different colors and materials. You can wear a satiny fluorescent pink burkha or a godzilla suit burkha. As I stumble ashore I'll yell it out. 'Ban the burkha!'"

"You're mad," says Simeon. "You'll be put in prison or flogged, or they'll pull you out of the sea with grappling hooks before you reach shore. And a godzilla suit burkha would merely be a godzilla suit."

"Whatever. Anyway, they were very kind to the Ukranian girl," I say. "They fed her and took her to the hospital."

"She wasn't yelling out, 'Ban the burkha!' either."

"She didn't have to yell it out as she was probably in a bikini, which is a 'ban the burkha' statement in itself." 

"Their kindness may very well have been because she was an eighteen year old Ukranian girl in a bikini. But, yes, by all means wear a bikini then, and you shan't have to yell out anything if you happen to survive the swim," says Simeon. 

"Or I could swim up the coast, to Eilat, finally set foot upon Israeli sand," I say.

"You're certain to fail," says Simeon.

"That's true," I say. "I'm banned from Israel forever and ever, like an unwanted drunken sailor banned from a bar."

"It's much worse than that, I'm afraid," says Simeon.

"Yeah," I say with a sigh. "Fun to think about these things, though. You up for a little freediving?"

"A bit of yoga first, I should think," says Simeon.

"Namaste," I say.

A False Dilemma?

I was sitting at a café, one which might be found somewhere in Istanbul, and Simeon was puffing away on a nargile. Simeon was also drinking a dark, amber tea from a shapely little glass, while I had a nearly black Turkish coffee in front of me. Simeon took a deep hit off of the nargile, using his right hand to guide the pipe's billowing smoke so as to allow it to envelope his hairy head.

"Somehow it's not at all like smoking a fine cigar," he said. "With the fruity flavour the smoke actually seems to expand the lungs, as if one had just had an invigorating swim."

"It's a bit like drinking a fruity alcoholic beverage, I think, Simeon. You don't realize you're consuming poison until it's too late."

"Perhaps," he said. "Nevertheless..."

And he took another hit from the nargile.

A woman walked past with a little dog on a lead, and the dog had a little poo on the sidewalk. Then the woman and the little dog continued their journey.

"Seems a bit anti-social, leaving your dog's poo on the pavement," said Simeon.

"Maybe so," I said. "But I'm not sure what's worse, having to step over dogshit on the sidewalk or having to deal with anti-dogshit laws. The other day I was walking Bella out to the fields, where she is free to have a poo anywhere she likes, but she didn't make it that far, and she had a poo on the grass near a lamp post. It was a little patch of grass, and in a part of Aldenhoven where the patches of grass are littered with rubbish, and where no one walks on the grass, so I was fine with Bella having her kaken there, and an old woman observed from a distance of some 20 meters-- just standing there, observing, with nothing better to do-- and when I saw her standing there watching, I knew exactly what was coming once I left without having picked up the doggy doo doo, and sure enough, when I turned away and headed towards the fields, she had some severe words for me which I didn't understand, and I completely ignored her, and into the fields we went where Bella kakened and pissened and ran about and had a grand old time. And when we returned, there was the old woman, talking to an elderly man, and she was vehement, and the only word I undestood and heard over and over was "Scheiße", and she glared at me, and the old man too, and I thought I might have a poo on the sidewalk where they stood, but decided against it and walked away. And then I remembered the man I'd seen the other day, begging for coins outside of the supermarket, and I'd been angry about that, and I wondered if these two old dog poo patrollers were at all angry about there being people in their little town who had to beg in front of supermarkets to get by, and I thought that if all the dog poo patrollers in the world put the same energy into alleviating hunger and poverty as they did dog poo patrolling and pointing at violators and perhaps even identifying them in police lineups-- if they put half of their poo patrolling energy into alleviating hunger, there might be more dogshit lying about, but fewer people begging."

"I see your point, old chap," said Simeon. "There may be a bit of a false dilemma in your argument, though. It doesn't have to be poo or poverty. One can be a crusader against dog poo and against poverty I should think."

"No, Simeon," I said. "I've never met an anti-dog poo crusader who cared about people in poverty. You see, it's not really about the dog poo. They don't really give a shit about poo. It's about the opportunity to finger someone who is breaking a rule or a law. You know, the tattletale of primary school. Gives them a feeling of power. Bastards. Gives them a feeling of power to see people begging too. And to call the cops on them."

Simeon was puffing a little too heartily on the nargile, and he began to cough.

"Uh, huh," I said. "Poison."

"Perhaps you should take the bloody thing for a bit," he said, passing the tube to me.

"No thanks, Simeon. I've quit."

"But surely," he began, then stopped to cough a bit more. "Surely," he said, after regaining his composure, "surely you would be put out if you were to sink your shoe into a fresh dog poo. Surely you would curse the person who had left the poo there. Or the dog, or perhaps the both of them?"

"Not at all, Simeon. Shit happens."

Simeon chuckled politely at the cliché.

"Indeed," he said."Where shall we cycle to next, to have our next little conversation?"

"I know a place in Dahab, on the Gulf of Aqaba," I said. "We can do a little freediving, then go to Sindbad camp, hang out there."

"Off we go then," he said. "Mind the doggy poo!"

Oatmeal

I was having oatmeal with Elke this morning, or porridge, as it is known in the British Isles, and thinking about how simple it was to prepare, even though it wasn't 'instant'--  'instant oatmeal' being popular back in the Old Country, where one has only to pour hot water on the oatmeal and it is ready to eat-- though it wasn't 'instant' oatmeal, I say, it was still relatively instant, in that it took about five minutes to prepare. The American, 'instant oatmeal' probably only takes 2 or 3 minutes to prepare, the preparation being the heating of water and fetching butter and sugar and whatnot, thus saving Americans 2 or 3 minutes in their day, which Europeans lose by cooking the stuff.

As I was saying, I was thinking about how simple this satisfying breakfast was to prepare, and how self-sufficient I was in preparing it, when I thought again. It may have seemed as though it had taken 5 minutes to prepare, but it had taken thousands of years, when one considers all that has gone into a bowl of oatmeal.

It was probably a woman who discovered the wild oat that was to become oatmeal, as she scavenged for berries and nuts, the menfolk having failed to kill that woolly mammoth the other day, and returned from the hunt bruised and with bruised egos. So as the menfolk sat around the camp that day, hungry, and blaming each other for the failed hunt-- "Why didn't you thrust your spear when you were under the mammoth, man?"-- "Yeah, right, and have it squash me so you can feed your face?"-- "The spearhead was loose on my spear, dude, I'm gonna have someone else do my spears from now on..."-- so as they sat around making excuses and pointing their fingers, a few women ventured from the camp despite having already picked all the berries and found all of the grubby worms in the vicinity.

And so it was that one woman said, "What about this plant? Maybe we can eat this one," and she took the wild oat and rolled it in her fingers and ate it.
"It's not very nice to eat, but better than nothing," she said.

"We can mash a bunch of them with a rock, so they're softer," said another woman.

"Or," said another, "remember how those plants got mushy in the water that was in that concave stone, and then especially when the guys built the fire next to it, and it got hot and bubbly, and we ate a little, and the plants weren't tasty but they were mushy?"

"Yeah?" said one woman, not following.

"Well, we put these hard things, what should we call them? Yotes? Oots?"

"How about oats?"

"Okay, so we put these oats in that concave stone..."

"We can call that concave stone a 'bool'."

"I think 'bowl' sounds nicer than 'bool'."

"Okay, then, a bowl... so we put these oats in a bowl and next to the fire, and they'll get mashy and soft, then we can eat the stuff to see if it's tasty."

"If it's tasty we can call it oat something... oat melee, or oat melange..."

"Or oatmeal..."

"Okay."

"Or porridge!"

"What? Why?"

Etc etc.

And so oatmeal was invented.

But then the wild oats had to be cultivated, which probably would have been a woman's idea as well.

"Let's get movin', man, nothing to kill around here," one of the boys might have said, hungry and cranky.

"I think we should stay," a very brave woman may have said. "You guys don't get much food for us, but there happen to be a lot of oats growing around here, and we noticed that if you give some of the oats back to the ground, even more grow back, so we can stay and always have something to eat."

"Friggin' boring idea," one of the lads may have said.

"You wanna eat or starve?"

And some would have decided to stay and become farmers.

And then the story goes on, as oats became mass produced, and there was surplus, and the surplus sold to others, and each step of the way more stories, how money came to be invented, and the plow, and transport to get the oats from the farm to the consumer, and over thousands of years of development, after years of tears and toil and strife, and due to thousands, hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of people-- when you combine those people and their stories with those thousands of years, the oatmeal would have finally arrived to your cupboard or mine, and then to the bowl-- and though it would seem to have taken only 5 spare minutes to prepare-- or 3 minutes with the instant variety-- in fact, it has taken all of civilization and its history to prepare.

So, nothing instant or self-sufficient about it.

Meanwhile, for a bit of news:
Simeon is reading, having cycled for about an hour. He's reading, 'Confessions of an Opium Eater.' I don't know where he gets these books, probably from that mysterious friend of his, Niemand Keiner. Also, it seems I've really got a job now, or two even, both teaching English, one via Skype, and the other in a school in Jülich, which was 97% destroyed in the War some 69 years ago.

It had taken a very long time for Jülich to come into existence, if you consider the time from that ape-like ancestor of ours, australopithecus-- ah, I see I have caught Simeon's attention now-- if you consider the time, I say,  from that ape-like ancestor to the time of the city's foundation as Juliacum in Roman times, some 4 million years later. Then it was gone in a flash-- reduced to rubble with a city's name-- after a bit of saturation bombing in 1944. Then it sprouted up again rather quickly, but its rebuilding was not done in the 20 years after the war, no, it was done before it was even destroyed, as it is the collective knowledge of civilization that makes a city, or reduces it to rubble in a few saturation bombing raids, or rebuilds it. This computer, that bowl of oatmeal, the city of Jülich, all so taken for granted.

We are all just little points of expertise at the end of a very long line of those who made us the experts.

We're like an offensive end on a football team, called in to replace the man who's been injured. There are 3 seconds on the clock. We're playing in this game for the first time, after having sat on the sidelines sipping Gatorade for a few hours. Our team has battled 80 yards to get to the goal line. They've been battling for  hours. They're exhausted, bruised, dirty, sweaty, bleeding, and here we come, this guy with a clean uniform, our body still smelling like last night's Uomo, trotting on to the field and into the huddle. The play is called. The linemen battle against the defense once more, blocking, grunting, clearing the way. The new man-- that is, us-- we see the ball float off the hands of the quarterback and right into our own. We make one step and we've crossed the goal line for a touchdown. We congratulate ourselves on our wonderful accomplishment. Instant oatmeal.