in the mood to read

William Faulkner, for some reason. I’m not always in the mood for that, but once in awhile it hits me strongly.

jet lag management

This is a big issue for me, now that I travel to the U.S. a couple of times per year to give lectures, since 3-week recovery times are normal for me upon returning to Egypt.

The obvious point is that you have to try to force yourself to sleep on a normal schedule as much as possible.

I’ve also found that jet lag is a double-dip phenomenon. The first time you think you’ve beaten it, you haven’t. It rises from the dead once. Beat it a second time, and you’re generally cured.

when Oscar was orange

I posted this a couple of years ago, but here it is again. Gordon challenges an early orange version of Oscar the Grouch, and gets a famous song in reply. (Apparently, Grover was brown in that first season as well.)

The New York accents of Gordon and Oscar are a bit stronger than I remembered.

speaking of TV for children

I was reading elsewhere about how the early episodes of Sesame Street would no longer be considered suitable for children. Some of the problems:

1. Some of the muppets are smoking pipes in the early shows.

2. Kids ride bicycles without helmets. (So did we all in that generation.)

3. In one sketch Gordon meets a little girl on the street, invites her to his apartment, and walks there with her, hand-in-hand.

Mr. Rogers in the U.S. Senate 1969

Perhaps only of interest to Americans and only those over a certain age. But for us this is pretty funny: children’s television host Fred Rogers testifying in the U.S. Senate in 1969. (It was also an extremely successful Senate appearance for Mr. Rogers, as you’ll see if you watch all the way to the end.)

most startling remark overheard on the St. John’s campus

“I never check my St. John’s email account.”

It doesn’t seem like an email sort of place, and we didn’t have accounts when I was there.

Otherwise, the fragments of conversation I overheard sounded the same as 20 years ago. The students even sort of look the same. However, the campus felt a lot less crowded than I remembered it. It almost felt a bit deserted. But I think my sense of crowdedness has simply been recalibrated by a decade in Egypt, with the result that all American gatherings now feel a bit depopulated by comparison.

NY Times article on the origin of language

HERE.

The topic is new research that posits a single origin for human language, in the southern part of Africa.

One especially interesting point here: just as human genetic diversity decreases the further you move away from Africa, the same is true of phomenic diversity. Some of the African click languages use 100 phonemes. English uses 45. Hawaiian (about as far from Africa as you can go, genetically) uses only 14.

a general reflection on Egypt

A number of disappointing and even ugly things have happened here since February 11, and for that reason there have been a few pretty depressing moments when my general optimism has been tested.

However, the primary cause for optimism is that, slow and erratic though its course may be, the Army does eventually seem to respond to demands, as long as the protestors keep showing that they can bring thousands of people back onto the streets whenever they see fit.

In bad moments, it’s always easy to start thinking that some sinister master plan exists within the Army leadership. But whenever something happens like the arrest of the Mubaraks, a different picture takes shape once again: that of the Army as a basically conservative group of people rather than a scheming and plotting one, people who fail to take actions quickly more out of instinctive foot-dragging and caution (and indeed a bit of selfishness) than due to some vast manipulative plan. This is the more optimistic picture, and I hope it’s the correct one.

more free wifi

Chris R. says Burlington, Vermont as well. And he’s heard Las Vegas has it too (I drove to Las Vegas on my only visit there, so have never seen the airport). And Chris also says Salt Lake City, which matches Paul’s recollection (my only trip to Salt Lake City was by train, and that was in the way way pre-internet days of 1984, on top of that).

My mistake, due to jetlag. Chris was only talking about Burlington in connection with wifi. He switched to a different topic with Las vegas and Salt Lake City: which airports still allow you to smoke (and he isn’t sure about Salt Lake City).

I’ve never been a cigarette smoker and so have never had to worry about the issue. My smoking problem is apple shisha-related, and obviously I don’t lug those around on my travels.

story on the Mubarak arrests

In AHRAM ONLINE, which is a good site to bookmark with if you’re interested in day-to-day detailed happenings in Egypt.

From news accounts people seem to be mostly happy about this. I haven’t been back long enough to talk to many people and give first-hand reports on the reaction.

I’ve still heard not one word about where Omar Suleiman has been all this time. Nor have I heard anything about Fathy Sorour, another prime target of protestor criticism. Otherwise, they’ve rounded up quite a large group of regime officials, and there could eventually be a season packed densely with trials.

I’d rather not see anyone get the death penalty, though in fact I’ve only heard that idea floated in the case of Habib al-Adly, the widely hated former Interior Minister. I even saw that sentiment up close: one of my taxi drivers a couple of weeks ago made the universal knife-across-the-throat gesture when he mentioned al-Adly’s name, and my driver is far from the only one who feels that way. He seems to be everyone’s favorite Poster Child regime criminal.