Zen Driving

I swear, drivers are getting worse and worse every year. In more of a hurry. Way more distracted, what with phones and texting and video, and before long, the internet. Not to mention just the rudeness and incivility that results from a general breakdown of social order.

So what can we possibly do to make drivers drive better?

Take away some of the rules.

Huh?

This short editorial appeared recently in The New York Times.

Recently, I have been considering the four-way stop. It is, I think, the most successful unit of government in the State of California. It may be the perfect model of participatory democracy, the ideal fusion of “first come, first served” and the golden rule. There are four-way stops elsewhere in the country. But they are ubiquitous in California, and they bring out a civility — let me call it a surprising civility — in drivers here in a state where so much has recently gone so wrong.

Verlyn Klinkenborg (I wonder if that's the same Verlyn Klinkenborg I was in the Navy with?) found that surprisingly, people tended to behave themselves better at a four-way stop. Drivers will happily run through red lights -- it's "the man", after all, telling you when to stop and when to go. Well, screw him: I'm going! But at a four-way stop, well, we're kind of all in it together.

I find myself strangely reassured each time I pass through a four-way stop. A social contract is renewed, and I pull away feeling better about my fellow humans, which some days, believe me, can take some doing. We arrive as strangers and leave as strangers. But somewhere between stopping and going, we must acknowledge each other. California is full of drivers everywhere acknowledging each other by winks and less-friendly gestures, by glances in the mirrors, as they catapult down the freeways. But at a four-way stop, there is an almost Junior League politeness about it.

Which got me thinking about old Hans Monderman, father of the naked road (warning: a couple of pictures that illustrate this informative article feature naked backsides. Just sayin'.)

The idea that made Monderman, who died of cancer in January at the age of 62, most famous is that traditional traffic safety infrastructure—warning signs, traffic lights, metal railings, curbs, painted lines, speed bumps, and so on—is not only often unnecessary, but can endanger those it is meant to protect.

As I drove with Monderman through the northern Dutch province of Friesland several years ago, he repeatedly pointed out offending traffic signs. “Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” he might ask, about a sign warning that a bridge was ahead. “Why explain it?” He would follow with a characteristic maxim: “When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.”

It seems counter-intuitive. Or maybe not. The more things you do to slow people down, the more they try to beat it. (Think of the driveway leading up to the high school. More than the speed bumps, it's the curves they put in that force you to slow.) But take away barriers, curbs, and put pedestrinas in play, and guess what? People slow down.

Who'da thunk?

Rest in Splendour!

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Thomas Gray, "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"

Completely by accident (I think -- who really knows) I came across this website. Now I'm guessing there aren't many people who would choose to spend all eternity in Buffalo, New York, (sorry, Buffalo) -- but think again. If you could be buried in the Blue Sky Mausoleum, in a tomb designed by Frank Lloyd Wright?!

Frank Lloyd Wright, as you may already be aware, was an architect, and recognized pretty much universally as a genius. His most famous creation, probably, was a house called Fallingwater, built right over a small stream.


They won't say anywhere on the website exactly how much it would cost, so I'm assuming that places it out of my price range. ("If you have to ask, you can't afford it.") There are only twenty-four crypts available (I'm not sure how many are left), and they claim that the design will not be reproduced anywhere in the world. If you've got to be dead, that is the way to go.

But then I start thinking that maybe burial's not for me. Maybe I'd rather be shot into space! Now, I can be placed in orbit for a mere $2495 -- well, not me, exactly. An ounce of my ashes. Of course, for double the price, I can send seven ounces of myself up. That would still leave almost five and a half pounds of cremated remains behind (ain't Wikipedia awesome?).

But why think small. For a mere $14,995, ($22,495 for Preferred Service -- whatever that is) my wife and I could spend eternity on the moon. Now that's more like it. That ought to make some impression at my 75th class reunion.

But I've got to admit I'm really tempted by the Voyager package -- an ounce of my earthly remains sent into deep space!

Now, in my research I also found this fascinating website -- for
the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery and Crematorium, "America's First and Most Prestigious Pet Burial Grounds." (I can't vouch for "most prestigious", but I'll take them at their word for oldest.) Good old Grumpy. "He waits for us" -- with pipe and slippers, no doubt.

"Addicted to Celebrities"

"Fame after death is the noblest of goals," says Beowulf, right before he goes off to tangle with Grendel's mother.

(No, not that Grendel's mother!)

Well, what good is fame going to do us after death, that's what I'd like to know. I just gave you an article by spoilsport Chris Hedges, who argues that our current obsession with fame is not good for us -- it fills us with false values and distracts us from important things.

But then I came across this article, which clued me into a phenomenon of which I was wholly unaware -- "haul videos". Apparently there are young girls who go out shopping, and then post videos on YouTube about what they buy. I watched the one about Blair all the way through -- man, does that girl ever stop talking -- but I have to give her credit: jeans for $6.99? I've paid as much as $35.00 for a pair of jeans. And the girl obviously has something on the ball -- she has makes and post these videos on two YouTube channels, some of them are tutorials and not just hauls. I just wonder where's she's going to be in ten years. Is this enough to build a life on? Or maybe it's just a hobby.

And click on the link for SoCal Ashley Danielle. It turns out fame can be a bummer. Ashley's been getting all these negative comments from people (including mothers, apparently), calling her a spoiled brat. She doesn't mind if poeple call her ugly, but it hurts her when people criticize her personality, because, she says, despite these videos about clothes and makeup, she's more concerned with what's on the inside than on the outside.

Anyway, I found the article interesting, and the videos, in a strange way, fascinating.

A Heartwarming Story

This was today's story from Story Corps.

Now I've often said that if my tombstone looked like this



I'd be a happy man.

Ralph Catania qualifies -- and the son he raised was not even his own flesh and blood.

Give it a listen. 3 minutes, 22 seconds. You won't be sorry.

Problematic Pronouns

Okay, so we had a little trouble with that "he/she - they" thing.

"If a student is late to class, he/she/they had better have a pass."

"Well now, student is singular, so it should be he."
"What if the student is a girl?"
"Doesn't matter. It's still he."
"That's sexist."
"That's right. But that's the rule. You could say she. But then what if the student is a boy? To be on the safe side, why don't you try he/she?"
"What, and sound like a doofus?"
"Yes, but a grammatically correct doofus."
"But I've heard you say many times in class 'If a student is going to be late to class, they'd better have a pass.'"
"Oh, sure. I don't want to offend anybody. And you all know what I mean."
"But now you're telling me that's grammatically incorrect."
"What I'm saying is, in real life we use he/she/they all the time. And in twenty to fifty years it will probably be accepted usage. But in the meantime, if a person were taking the SAT, he/she should use he or she or, preferably, he/she."
"(Doofus.")

Here's a good page from a very reputable source to tell you a little more about this.

And while we're at it, here's one that we did better on, but can still be troublesome -- especially considering that in idiomatic English, we often misspeak.

"Me and Bob went to the store."
"Bob and me went to the store."
Mom took Bob and I to the store."

Which is correct? None is. (Or is that"none are"? Damn!)*

"Bob and I went to the store", but "Mom took Bob and me to the store."

Here's the skinny on that one.




* Either, depending on context, is acceptable. The etymology of the word, along with the usage of more than five centuries, supports the senses of “not one” (singular) and “not any” (plural). On this descriptivists and informed prescriptivists agree, and bad teaching and bad advice are the only reasons that the superstition that “none” can be used only with a singular verb has survived.