Well it's been awhile, but I'm back with a bang:  a clever, sobering imaginary dialogue by Laura de Weck, in Das Wohl der Kinder, published in the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger on 18 December 2012.  Translated by Kevin Cook and reproduced here with permission. .

Adoption policies and discrimination based on sexual orientation in a certain country we know........
Here goes.

Child welfare

Maria

Woman

Man

Maria goes to the adoption centre for an interview. Sitting at the table are a woman and a man.

Maria: Good morning.

Woman + man: Good morning.

Maria: I’d like to enquire about adoption, as I’d very much like to bring up a child and give it loving care, as if it was my own child.

Woman: Right, well here’s this leaflet....

Maria: And... I love women, and I’ve been told things aren’t done the same way here as in Spain, where I come from.

Man: Oh, right, I see.... Would you like to begin?

Woman: No, you explain it to her.

Man: Right, well... In this country a woman who loves a man and is married to him can adopt a child and give it loving care....

Woman: .... and a woman who doesn’t love either a man or a woman and isn’t married to anyone can also adopt a child and give it loving care.

Man: And a woman who loves a woman can also adopt a child and give it loving care. Only she mustn’t love her partner too much, because if she marries her partner or has their relationship officially registered, she can’t adopt a child or give it loving care.

Woman: So, basically, if a woman loves a woman and they both want to care for a child, they shouldn’t mention that they love each other. As individuals, both Woman 1 and Woman 2 can adopt a child and give it loving care. But the law says that Woman 1 and Woman 2 can’t adopt the same child and give it loving care, because there are those who say the child would then not get enough loving care.

Man: And of course the same applies to men.

Woman: In this country we have equal rights.

Man: But last week the government very generously decided that a woman who loves a woman and has their relationship officially registered can adopt a child and give it loving care, as long as it’s her stepchild and the father is....

Woman: ....dead....

Man: ....or in jail....

Woman: ....or unknown....

Man: ....or on drugs....

Woman: ....or a pet....

Man: No, that’s different....

Woman: Oh, right.

Man: But to sum up: 1. You can adopt a child with your partner as long you don’t marry her and you bear the responsibility alone. 2. You can marry a transsexual who’s a man before the wedding and a woman after the adoption. In that case both the marriage and the child will be recognised. In fact, that’s really the only way for a gay couple in Switzerland to be married with equal rights. 3. You can adopt a child with your partner if it’s a child of your own. So you have a child of your own, but then you must....

Woman: ....kill the father....

Man: ....or get him jailed....

Woman: ....or have him registered as unknown....

Man: ....or get him onto drugs....

Woman: In other words, the adoption must be conducive to the child’s welfare.

Man: And, according to Swiss law and the Swiss government, the child’s welfare is best served if the child is brought up by one woman rather than two.

Woman: Because, according to Swiss law and the Swiss government, women who love women....

Man: ....and men who love men....

Woman: ....do not love in as reliable, child-friendly, full, devoted, responsible a way as women who love men....

Man: ....or men who love women.

Woman: The whole point is love.

Man: Which is strictly screened for every adoption, straight or gay.

Man: But tell me, how are things done in Spain?

Pause

Maria: In Spain, anyone who loves can adopt a child.

Montana Fashion Escape

We arrived in Montana-Crans yesterday for a few sunny days with family.

Today is gorgeous, though the once gorgeous snow rushes down in sun-sparkled rivulets.

Of course one of the first things I do on my morning off, because I don’t do downhill skiing anymore, is shop-drifting through elegant streets looking at elegant clothes with and without name brands, and wondering who could use that Desigual T –shirt with printed charcoal-drawing kids and color swatches, or the soberly elegant Gant shirt that whispers ‘I’m way casual but guess how much you’d have to pay for me?’

Tourist boutiques are filled with ugly cows leering from linen towels (made in China?), 200 Swiss franc kiddie Moonboot knock-offs (idem), fur jackets for many thousands, and the surfboarder’s dream jacket for 800, on sale from its original 1,200 francs, not counting matching trousers and the silk shirt on your back.

As if you cared enough to turn a tag around and take a look (with discretion), and you do and the price is….oh no, don’t tell me…..

Ah yes, pre-scuffed boots are in vogue, though they look even more tired than they did last July: you know, boots that have lived, boots with a history, for heaven’s sake Eloise.

What I would call Let’s Look @ My Vintage,  old hippie knock-arounds….hey, peace and love……I’m wearing boots that waded through monsoon and mud-slides in Bangladesh when I was a stringer for Bareback Outback…..when in fact the wearer is the daughter of a Valaisan banker….

Meanwhile of course this materialist loitering transports me to the land of Glamor and the Unnecessary Accessory, far away from news of the tragic death, following a series of brutal rapes, of a young woman in Ambedkar Nagar, Uttar Pradesh.

And the terrible events in Syria.

And my conflicting views on Israeli policy and policies, while loving Israel.

I can look at the fur of a wild animal killed for fashion, and feel the guilty pleasure of running my fingers through it, and the (supposed) moral superiority of someone who wouldn’t buy fur even if she could afford it.

Animals suffer at the hands of people, people suffer at the hands of people, and I am distracted by fur and fashion, the color and flow of textiles that are this year’s answer to what was happening last year.

We’ll see if 2013 will see its share of camouflage prints to honor Syria and perhaps as a tribute to repression, the rise of the hijab as the dernier cri in fashion.

ALPINE AIRHEAD

Ok, so I'd like to have a different identity, profile.
Something.....young, fresh, different.
An alter-ego to Bicontinental Blogger, who lingers over what she hopes is wise & witty, waits until a blog is ripe before allowing it out to pasture, and wouldn't mix a metaphor......

Yes, a new profile:  Alpine Airhead?
The world is absurd and strange, and full of people reacting to it. TV announcers become pundits, pundits become overblown with their own wisdom, the masses are ignorant or under-informed, but anyone is good for an interview by someone toting a microphone.

Alpine Airhead reminds me of Bécassine, Amelia Bedelia and Ugly Betty:
goofy, sweet, original, and occasionally intelligent.
 http://www.librairie-gaia.com/dossiers/becassine/Becassine%20Historique.htm
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/52753



She wanted to  be interviewed, as she hadn't had a chance to express herself---she is a modest unknown. So allow me to introduce her.

She's an expat (so what's new?) who tries to keep her nose clean, and even though she occasionally reads a journal and absorbs the newspapers in homeopathic doses, no one cares,  No one listens to her wisdom on whatever it is, the European economy, genetically modified food, post-feminism, fracking,  domestic cats, not so domestic cats, etc. even when she has nothing to say. I didn't want her to feel invisible.

I decided to give her a special moment in the sun before it disappeared at 4 pm, and promised I'd publish her interview here this evening.

Bicontinental Blogger (BB): So welcome to the Blog Alpine Airhead! Please feel free to express yourself. Just to let you know, we don't use really strong language on the blog. We beat around the bush, so to speak. May I call you Airhead? 

Alpine Airhead (AA): Natch!

BB:  So Airhead, what are your thoughts on the economy?

AA: Now I'm glad you asked me that. I have feelings about it, lots of feelings, but no thoughts. I really know so little about economics.....my feelings are.....what can I say...um....you know.....not so good, in fact rather bad, like......

BB: ....but surely....you're being too modest....

AA: no really, I don't know a thing. In the good old days there were experts, right and left, I mean left-wing and right-wing, but now the sleeves of competence are unravelling and left is no longer right, I'm so lost. I miss that old binary system, but when they dropped the Iron Curtain, everyone was dying to become Westernized. See where that's brought us!!

BB:  Ah.....where?

AA:  People scrambling to get into the Euro, out of the Euro, back to the drachma, into bed with underage teenagers, who knows, pesetas and lira and we'll have to break out our old piggy banks.  I mean poor Angela, she's got Europe on her shoulders and it's giving her very bad posture.

BB:  Ha ha, thank you Airhead. I feel for Ms Merkel too.
So how about genetically modified products? The French are battling it out right now, the US has developed an impressive array of them and has used them for years. What's the solution? Are they dangerous?  Where does it all end?

AA: You're asking me? Fish cell carrots? Insectide corn? Talking soy beans? Bleuuuuch. 
When I was young we were just working out how you glued together a model of the double-helix. You expect me to keep up with this? 
I tuned out after we learned about arginine, glycosylene, thyrosamine and cyclosporin.

BB:  I believe you mean adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine.

AA:  Yeah, whatever. Fill in the blanks. Show you know your way round the internet. Make me look stupid.

BB:  Oh, I didn't mean to do that! Forgive me if....

AA:  It's OK, I'm used to it.  It's because I'm a woman.

BB:  Well in fact I am too, but that doesn't mean....

AA: There we go, where's your feminist loyalty?
Oh,  I'll tell you a joke I heard thirty years ago:  two feminists go into a bar, and the first feminist says to the second......

BB:  Yes??

AA:  Oh hell, I forgot the punchline.

BB:  Hmm. Let's see. Um, fracking? Fracking and the environment?

AA:  I'm glad you asked me that BB. Fracking is an interesting word:  like  cracking and fracturing, which is what it sounds like, hacking, tracking, trucking, fuc......

BB: Excuse: me, we have to keep it clean.

AA: Ah, but that's the whole point. It's an onomatopeia, or onomatopoeia, if you have to be British. 
It sounds like what it is. You know, it's fracking the earth.

BB:  Well, I guess so. Let's end on a lighter note.
We've heard about your passion for cats. You're a cat-lover and cat-collector it seems!
You have, what is it, twelve cats?

AA: (Modestly) well right now it's eleven, but if you count the occasional dinner-guest, as many as fourteen step up to the trough in a day.

BB: Impressive. And what, er, what do you get from having so many cats?

AA: Well no-one has cats. Cats have you, clearly. But I enjoy watching them clean the bowl and chase spiders. They have their own language and are wise and beautiful.

BB:  But some cats seem to have some personality disorder, possibly borderline, as they don't relate to humans well. They can be very reactive, seem preoccupied only with themselves,  groom obssessively....

AA:  You of all people! Haven't you heard that Borderline Personality Disorder is no longer a proper diagnosis according to the new DSM V?.....You disappoint me. I thought you really kept up to date. I mean, I'm the dumb-cluck here.

BB: Yes, of course.  I mean I'm sorry. I mean thank you so much for your time Airhead. It's been.....

AA: ........and tell all your people out there that I'm for real.


End of Interview

Election Day 2012: Beyond Walt Whitman

Election Day, November, 1884 

by Walt Whitman

If I should need to name, O Western World, your 

   powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless 

   prairies--nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its 

   spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, 

   appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones--nor Huron's belt of mighty 

   lakes--nor Mississippi's stream:
--This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, 

   I'd name--the still small voice vibrating--America's 

   choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the 

   main, the quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd--sea-board 

   and inland--Texas to Maine--the Prairie States--

   Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West--the 

   paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless 

   conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern 

   Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker 

   odds, the dross:
--Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to 

   purify--while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

Walt Whitman was passionate, fervent (note the Foams and ferments) and Election Day has always been Big News.

Things don't change and do change:  "The final ballot-shower from East to West" ok. But it's now become CNN's "final voting hour" with multiple millions of viewers tracking  results from East to West.

"The Heart of it not in the chosen---the act itself the main, the quadriennial choosing" is only partly true.

Today the stakes are planetary.  It's not just the touching idea of everyman, everywoman engaged in the quasi-reverent ceremony of The Vote, the Big Show and spectacle observed minute by minute by Americans and non-Americans alike.  
It's that we are witnessing two very diverse philosophies, and the potential outcomes.

I confess I used to be a bit more cynical about party differences, committed Democrat though I am, but there's something stark here.

Romney would bring a terrifyingly constricted world vision to the presidency, along with the corrupting influence of huge money: run the country like a business, look at me and try to do as I have done, live as I believe you should live (at least this week), look at my smooth, prosperous smile, trust me and don't worry that I don't know a damn thing about foreign policy.

It'll be a cliff-hanger, but Barack Obama will be our president for the next term.

Carpe Diem: the Smile

There are carpe diem moments.

And then there‘s the instant you didn’t realize might be a carpe diem moment.  And you drop the carp back into the river.

Scene:  Michael’s Pub in Manhattan, where Woody Allen played with his jazz band for years, circa 1974. Much more than a pub, it had fairly classy place settings, and offered a full menu, beyond my resources for a weekday night.

But I wanted a glimpse of the live Woody Allen: was he really quirky looking? How did he walk? Was he natural on stage?

So I glided unobstrusively into Michael’s at about 6 pm. and stood, awkward and invisible, by the bar at the back. Too shy to snag a waiter for a drink. Almost too shy to breathe.

Sure enough, a few minutes later he walked out in his marginally slouchy pants, carrying his clarinet and nodding happy greetings to the sprinkling of musicians. He proceeded to prepare the clarinet, clean it, test the reed, tune it and so forth.

Then he glanced up and smiled at someone sitting behind me at the bar. A big, broad, generous, humorous grin. I stared back. Then turned around to check who he was smiling at.

There was no one there…no one. He was smiling at me.

Was I a suave young Manhattanite who would offer Woody a glass of wine, or perhaps a ginger ale? Or laugh and wave back nonchalantly and change my dinner plans?

No way. I was out of there so fast I almost fell.

Shortly after that, Diane Keaton, an exact contemporary of mine, was doing all sorts of funny, silly, human, legendary roles.

No carp for me that day. 

Somalia has enormous social, economic and health problems.

Renu Chahil-Graf has been working on HIV in Somalia and reports on the acute HIV problems faced by the Somali people, highlighting an alarming ignorance about how it is acquired, prevented, much less treated. Renu has been working tirelessly in very challenging circumstances and wrote the article cited below.

http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2012/july/20120726mogadishu/

 Photo credit UNAIDS

The 1949 Hudson

As a sequel to the vintage car blog, http://lexieintrator.blogspot.fr/2012/07/chrome-nostalgia-cars-i-have-known.html and http://lexieintrator.blogspot.fr/2012/07/puss-on-peugeot.html  I asked Steve to send some shots of his 1949 Hudson.

Two-toned and beautiful, she's still up and running in 2012. Treated with respect and a lot of work. Great to ride in and draws smiles bigger than a front grille all over Cape Cod. 

Boat launching with Dave                                                                 Tracey's first ride

at Ballston Beach

in Steve's garage...