The Inquiring Manatee

South Carolina: The New California for Weirdness

     First it was the married Gov. Mark Sanford, caught "hiking the Appalachian Trail" -- translatable as visiting his Argentinian mistress, Maria Chapur Belen, in Buenos Aires -- on the South Carolina taxpayer's time.

     Next, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina bellowed "you lie!" at President Obama during a healthcare address to a joint session on Capitol Hill.
     So it comes as no surprise that it was a South Carolina man, Rodell Vereen, who was sentenced Wednesday to 3 years in prison for having sex with a horse. The conviction was on a charge of buggery.

    The horse was named Sugar, so presumably it was a mare. I'd hate to think of the alternative.   

    The horse's owner in Conway, S.C., videotaped Vereen in the act after, she said, she noticed her horse acting strangely. Turns out Vereen previously had been arrested in 2007 for sneaking into the stable for sex with the same horse. He was ordered to stay away from the stable, but apparently he had husbandly feelings. It's animal husbandry, if you ask me.

    Theatrical agents are descending on Vereen with offers for when he gets out of stir. Though he is said to have mental problems, he's a natural for the national touring company of "Who is Sylvia?", a play about a guy who's having sex with a goat. 

    Meanwhile, South Carolinians, those wonderful people who gave us Fort Sumter, are burying their heads in their manes -- uh, their hands. Migration to North Carolina is up by 20% this year.

Kill Your Kid for Your Culture

   Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, will be charged with murder in Peoria, Ariz., for running over his daughter with his Jeep in a parking lot because he thought the 20-year-old woman had become "too Westernized" and was bringing shame to the family -- presumably by dating a young man who was also of Arab background.

    Almaleki, an immigrant from Iraq, originally was charged with aggravated assault after the Oct. 20 attack on his daughter, Noor, put her in a coma. She died Monday and charges will be upped to murder, police say.    

     This type of "honor killing" is all too common abroad and also among the immigrants who import the concept when they come to the United States. To call it un-American is to understate the case. Killing your own children -- no matter what the reason -- should shock the conscience in those societies back home and doesn't belong even in those backward places, not to mention here.

   Almaleki himself apparently had become Westernized enough to flee to Britain after running down his daughter. If he was so proud of his "honor" crime, he should have stuck around and bragged about it. Instead, he showed up at Heathrow Airport, where authorities turned him around and put him on a plane to Atlanta. There he was arrested and brought back to Arizona.
    One point I want to make about this horrifying case is this: Here is a man who brought his family from Iraq to America -- to the West. Did he not expect Westernizing influences on his family here? If he was so hung up on Iraqi culture, why didn't he simply stay in Iraq? He should have known that America is a very different society from Iraq, especially when it comes to women's freedom.
    American consular officials who clear Iraqis for immigration here should sit them down at a seminar, teach them American mores and get them to sign pledges to abide by our laws and customs. If they don't agree, they don't get to come to America -- where parents are not legally considered to own their children to the extent of having life or death power over them.
     In short, Third Worlders from patriarchal cultures: If you don't like the West, stay in the East.

   

Fallout From the Tsunami in American Samoa

      The tsunami tragedy in American Samoa and Samoa is even worse news for fans of the National Football League. The South Pacific U.S. territory and neighboring sovereign nation are where all the linemen with the exotic names come from. I hope all those enormous guys could run fast enough to get to the high ground so they'll be around for next year's college recruiting and NFL draft.

Summer in Southern Vermont

     

WILMINGTON, Vermont -- Rain, endless clouds, lightning and thunder dominate the summer of 2009 in this friendly town of 2,000, midway between Bennington to the west and Brattleboro to the east.
      My wife Irma Hawkins and I arrived with our cat and two dogs on July 2. Since then, there has been but one day of unalloyed sunshine. We usually bring sunny weather with us from California for our eight-week stays here -- indeed, we are all but contractually obligated to do so, and our friends are duly grateful -- but this year, Jupiter Pluvius is the resident god in the Green Mountain State.
       Here is our lake under typical conditions this month:
        Still pretty, though, isn't it?
     This summer promises to be something short of idyllic. Aside from the problematic weather, my back hurts and I haven't been able to run my usual 5 miles on Highway 100, going north toward Canada. Carrying one of Irma's heavy steel sculptures up the stairs of our house in Venice, Calif., did me in. With luck and a few Tylenols, I hope to resume running tomorrow. Got to get ready for next April's Boston Marathon.
      Speaking of Boston, we arrived at Logan International Airport there after a red-eye flight from L.A. As we drove our rented SUV (an excellent Ford Edge) out of town on I-90, the rain was coming down in such torrents that we could barely see Fenway Park's Green Monster wall off to our left. As we moved northwest to our destination, 144 miles away, the rain let up. But new storms moved in later, and still more after that.
       Luckily, most of the Fourth of July was clear, allowing us to view the all-American small-town parade up in Wardsboro, Vt., a 25-mile drive from Wilmington, and also Wilmington's public fireworks display that night amid a bundled-up crowd. Here is a photo from the parade:
       That's the Grafton (Vermont) Cornet Band. There were antique cars, homemade floats, booths selling homemade apple pies. The real Vermont. There's no place like it.
     The price you pay for small-town life is the need to drive at least 20 miles to find goods and services that you need. As near as I can figure, for example, Wilmington has no dry cleaner. For big-box stores, there's the Walmart in Hinsdale, N.H., which I try to avoid on ideological grounds, and the giant malls of Keene, N.H., a 35-mile drive. We hit Keene yesterday and came home with a new printer, a photo tripod, clothes from Target and T. J. Maxx
      In recompense for our remoteness, we get quiet, time to read, time to think, time to catch up with old friends and help them with their troubles as they have helped us in the past.
      That's life at a summer place. Life in Vermont. It lives and thrives, rain be damned. And even in the height of a lightning storm, there is unparalleled natural beauty in how it lights up the lake.

The Manatee's Seasonal Migration

   

As of Thursday, July 2, The Inquiring Manatee's home waters will shift for the summer from the human-made canals of Venice, Calif., to the human-made Lake Whitingham, Vermont. Let's see if this blog's perspective changes as it moves East.
    Wish the Manatee luck with the weather, please. Manatees, native to the Sunshine State of Florida, don't particularly like a lot of rain, and that is what the East, and New England in particular, has been having this year.

Pet Pronunciation Peeve: "Cregg," "Creggslist"

   

My teeth were on edge this morning as I heard KPCC-FM's superb talk show host, Larry Mantle, presiding over a discussion of the controversy over the "erotic services" offerings on Craigslist, which apparently have led to one or two murders of people who advertised their availability for hanky-panky. About half the time, Mantle properly pronounced the web site as "CRAYGSlist," but he also followed the nails-on-a-blackboard trend of pronouncing "Craig" as "Cregg" and, therefore, calling the site "Creggslist."
    When did CRAYG turn into CREGG? The bizarre habit seems to have started about 25 years ago and to have embedded itself in American culture. I can't see any reason for it. It's jarring and silly. "Craig," properly pronounced, is a perfectly fine and honorable name, and easy enough to say.
     If somebody wants to call himself Cregg, he can jolly well spell it "Cregg." (There's an affable, veteran Washington, D.C., journalist named Cragg Hines who works for a Texas newspaper. I don't know any Creggs.) If you see the name spelled "Craig," pronounce it in the traditional way as "Crayg." That goes for Craigslist.
   Whew! Feels good to get that off my chest at last.
    

Supporting the Airline "Fat Tax"

   

We've all had the nightmare flight where the fleshy forearm and giant thigh of the oversized woman or man in the next coach seat intruded into our space, slopping over the armrest and leaving us to scrunch in a miserable corner. You don't know true hatred until you've had moments like that.
     I've thought of asking enormous seatmates to fork over cash on the spot to reimburse me for a proportion of the cost of my ticket. Alas, I've been too polite to make a fuss.
     Now, the airlines are taking their own vengeance. Starting with Southwest and now spreading to United and other carriers, airlines are asking the severely overweight who can't fit into a standard coach seat to pay for two seats.
    From the airlines' viewpoint, it's not just that these passengers are ruining another passenger's flying experience (United says it received 700 complaints from squeezed passengers last year); they're also causing the plane to burn more jet fuel, which isn't cheap these days. It's discrimination, sure, but not without a valid reason.
    Call it a penalty, call it a punishment, call it a "fat tax." Under whatever name, the plus-sizes are squawking. As for me, I back the airlines. The need to pay extra, take a less crowded flight or upgrade to roomier seats will encourage the overweight to eat less, or even, God help us, to get some exercise. (Confession: I'm a skinny distance runner and a hopeless snob about fitness.) The same social message that smokers get when they're exiled from office buildings and barrooms -- change your habits -- is now landing on the willpower-challenged.
     But what about people who are fit but very tall and naturally large? They could be exempted from the extra charge, but it's a moot point. Passengers fitting this description are all NBA or NFL players. They make so much money that they can afford to fly business class or first class.
     I'm sorry if corpulent folks are offended, but there's a certain rough justice to the double-charging policy. Work harder on your diet, try bariatric surgery or do something aerobic. Of course, you also can choose to stay the same wonderful (if misunderstood) person you are and avoid humiliation by booking a business-class seat. It's literally the price of bigness, and you'll have a nicer flight. So will your fellow travelers.
     

Want to Lose Weight? Forget Dieting.

   

There are news reports out today about a research study published online by the New England Journal of Medicine. It concerns dieting, and after years of study concludes that any diet combination of carbs, fats and proteins is equally effective for weight loss provided that you simply cut the number of calories you ingest.
     Unfortunately, the study misses the point. No diet works alone to lose you weight. You have to exercise, too. 
     In fact, the only way to lose weight and keep it off is to run. Yes, get off your butt and run. Fearful of hurting your little knees? Go to a drugstore and buy Spandex knee guards. They work well for protection, and will actually cure knee pains.
     Start by walking around the block. Build up to runs of 50 yards at a time. Keep it up. Before you know it, you'll be running a mile at a time. Then go up gradually to two miles. Then three. Enjoy your first 5-K (3.1-mile) race in the company of hundreds of other runners. Or just run by yourself, always facing traffic if you run on the roads.
     You don't have to run any more than 20 miles a week to get maximum aerobic benefits from running, which are considerable. So work up to that.
     Running will shed the weight off you as if you've had liposuction. It works quickly.
     And it's the only thing that works. The only thing.

Annoying Expressions, Part I

   

In line with the often snarky, curmudgeonly tone of this blog, I am inaugurating today a periodic listing of trendy but pretentious and ultimately dumb-sounding phrases that should be shunned by educated Americans.
    First on the list is skill sets. This human resources jargon has no place in daily discourse or writing. Let's return to the simpler "skills," OK?
    Second is "moving forward," used in place of "from now on" or "from here on out." For example, an executive of Ticketmaster was quoted today as apologizing to Bruce Springsteen for linking frustrated would-be buyers who couldn't easily get tickets to his concerts to an alternative site that takes huge markups on concert tickets' face value. The executive said Ticketmaster would be more public-spirited "going forward."
    This twaddle apparently started with diplomats or Washington politicians. It is definitely Washingtonspeak. The rest of us can do without it. Thank you.
     Comments appending your favorite annoying verbal inventions would be welcomed. As I think of more, which won't be difficult, I'll post them.

At the Super Bowl, Another Screw-up of "America the Beautiful"

   

Faith Hill is one of the ten most beautiful women in the world. It was good to see her kick off Sunday's Super Bowl XLIII telecast in a music video, clad all in black, then to see her live at the stadium in Tampa, switching to a white jacket and black pants. Sigh.
    An irritant in the proceedings, however, was the fact that Ms Hill got the simple words to "America the Beautiful" wrong. Almost everybody does. The error is an exceedingly ignorant one, and it's time to get everyone to correct it.
    Faith Hill, and so many others, sing it this way:

    O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.
    For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain.

   No, no, no, no, no.

   It's For purple mountains' majesty above the fruited plain.

   What is so hard to grasp about that? Jeez. Just get it right.