Party Like It's 1989

            This month the news needs hourly updating.  It is February, 2011, governments have fallen in Tunisia and Egypt, and today the Libyan Air Force bombed its own people in Tripoli while there have been active and unprecedented protests in Yemen, Bahrain, Algeria and Iran.   

           Everyone who can remember thinks back to 1989 and wonders if the Middle East will remake itself in the same manner as Eastern Europe did, but my thoughts are more about how blind we really were then, and how short is our foresight.

           On May 2, 1989 the Communist government of Hungary opened its borders to trade with Austria.  Under treaty obligations with East Germany, however, East Germans who could travel to Hungary were not allowed to go to Austria, and  East Germans began seeking asylum in the West German embassy in Budapest.  On August 24, 1989, dealing with overcrowding at the embassy but certainly in no way seeking to overturn the world order Hungary allowed 108 asylum seekers to leave the embassy and cross into Austria.  By September 10 with “intolerable conditions” at the embassy Hungary temporarily suspended its treaty obligations and allowed 7,500 refugees to leave for West Germany.  By September 25 Time Magazine noted that 14,000 German refugees has left Hungary, but still no one perceived any existential threat to the Communist bloc.  Within weeks East Germany was hemorrhaging people out the back door, and on November 9, 1989 – a mere two months after the first refugees escaped the Berlin wall was breached and an era had ended.

           Talking heads now speak either of the birth of Middle Eastern democracies or of islamofascist thugocracies.  The truth is we did not predict what has happened to date and we do not know what will happen in 2 months.  In a future retrospective  I’m sure whatever  happens will all have been obvious, but the future is opaque and for now the news is updated hourly.

Mixed Passages - Now I'm 64

          The Winter has brought travels to the Land of Snow and thoughts of things to come. Now I’m 64.  http://contrariat.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html.

           In the Land of Snow of course the plow guy comes to do the heavy work, but preparing for the plow guy is like cleaning up before the cleaning lady, and getting out before he comes means removing the plow-in at the end of the mercifully short driveway.  

           The shoveling brings on a lot of heavy breathing and other effects which, if  researched at Web MD would likely be labeled as precursors of something bad, but I don’t believe it, don’t know what shoveling is “supposed” to feel like, don’t know what anyone else feels like and simply cannot/will not accept that one day it will be poor judgment to shovel the driveway.  In the Land of Snow it’s what happens, and we can’t stop doing what we do.

           The reward of the effort is to get to the ski slopes.  I started skiing very late and always badly, but it seems now that my skill decreases annually.  What 10 years ago was covering all the blue trails and the easiest black trails is now most of the blue trails and gratitude for the greens.  On the other hand, I guess there just aren’t that many guys my age skiing at all, so maybe it’s all good.

           Back at the lodge the trifecta is that fiscal logic compels the conclusion that Trophy Wife should shortly claim Social Security benefits.   Putting aside the absurdity of the government writing us checks we don’t need with money it doesn’t have,  the matrix of calculations indicates that it is to our advantage to start taking the benefit.   If I am hesitating it is not out of some higher moral conviction against taking it but out of some distaste for the “senior citizen” label.  The AARP card and $2 off at the movies are a lark, but The Check is something else.