City gossip

Cities have their ebbs and flows, expanding and shrinking as circumstances change.  See this fascinating historical perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2uoqJmJaGo. Beyond size, in a few cases, the name of a city becomes linked with a product or event, rendering both eternally famous or infamous beyond its immediate world importance.

For example, in a few cases, due to historical circumstances, new governments were established in a city and provided that regime with its historical name. In the 20^th century, we have the Vichy Regime from 1940-1944, the “Free French” zone that gradually became a German puppet under its controversial leader, Pierre Laval, who may or may not have tried to maintain French sovereignty. Previously, after World War I, the Germans established the Weimer Republic in the town of Weimer, which lasted until 1933. That was probably the most exciting event in the history of that city. Unfortunately, the rise of Nazi Germany ended those glory days but it was fun while it lasted. Several centuries earlier, from 1309 to 1376, there was the Avignon Papacy where some seven French controlled popes ruled in opposition to the popes in Italy.  There were another series of Avignon popes but that all ended in 1417.  That claim to fame is certainly much interesting than knowing that there was a bridge in Avignon where people danced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJKfxtYAt0s.

Many specific long-forgotten but then important historical events occurred in certain cities.  For instance, there are countless treaties named after cities but nobody but history fanatics actually remembers them. However, some are still engrained in consciousness of specific countries. For example, the Evian Accords ended the Algerian War of Independence in 1962. Likewise, both Brits and Indians (not American) remember the Black Hole of Calcutta. In 1756, the Nawab of Bengal had the chutzpah of imprisoning some 125 Europeans in the local dungeon, known as the Black, Hole, in a cell less than 24 square meters for three days, resulting in the death of 100 of them and leading to the establishment of the British government’s control of India. More recent examples of cities with tragic events with varying atrociousness are the rape of Nanjing in China by the Japanese in 1937, which affected some 200,000-300,000 people, and the American My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968, which resulted in between 300 and 500 Vietnamese casualties.  It should be mentioned that, the Geneva Convention, ratified in 1949, “regulates” civilized warfare but its record is marked more by its non-compliance than the opposite. 

On a cheerier note, some foods and cities are married, so to speak. For example, I am a great fan of Manhattan clam chowder, which is made with tomatoes instead of milk, as in New England clam chowder. If you are in Menton, near Monaco, in the correct season, you can eat a Menton lemon, which is edible in its right, not being unpleasantly sour. Some people may consider Jerusalem artichoke, also called a sunroot, a delicacy, but I find it a great way to spend a day or two in the bathroom. For those carnivorous among us, two delicious cuts of beef include a New York strip, cut from the beef short loin with or without bone, and Kansas City strip cut, which a portion of the bone, the top corner of the “T”.

I assume that are many other city references in English and other languages and would love to hear about them. On the other hand, if you found this post awful, you can give me a Bronx cheer, a boo or, in virtual language, a thumb down, which I imagine most New York Knick fans have been giving their team for the last ten years or so. Regardless, most cities would agree with Oscar Wild that “only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about”.

Media hyperopia or regional blindness

Many years ago, New York Magazine published its famous map of the world as seen by New Yorkers, with New York and California occupying 3/4 of the map.  This visual distortion may have been caused by cultural prejudices and airplane connections.  In any case, the residents of the east coast knew and still know much more about Los Angeles than Portland, Maine or Raleigh, North Carolina despite the latter’s closer proximity. Recently, I started following the posts of a professional colleague that lives in Lebanon. Keep in mind that I live in Karmiel, some 17 kilometers (10 miles) from the Lebanese border and 48 kilometers (30 miles) from the Syrian border. Reading his posts, I realized that I knew close to nothing about what is going on either country, not mention Jordan, also not far away, about which no I have no idea what is happening.  Yet, I easily follow events in Washington, London, Paris and even Ankara, which are much farther away, through daily reports in Israeli media.

One cause of this news blackout is simply lack of air time.  We in Israel have more than enough to talk about with our multiple elections, clashes with the Palestinians and tension with the Syrians, not to mention Bibi’s legal troubles. Trump, Putin, Nasrallah, and Erdogan. There is no problem filling any empty moment in the news. As a result, there is no media oxygen for Lebanon’s financial problems and Syria’s rebuilding as well as anything about Jordan. Egypt is in another continent for that matter. Yet, events in these countries have a direct influence on stability in the area. The only way to find out is to access the foreign media in Arabic, which most Jews in Israel cannot do even when they speak some Arabic. In terms of media, our neighbors are invisible.

To be fair, part of the problem is the lack of available information.  Israel is the only country in the Middle East with freedom of the press. In other words, official announcements from these countries are less than reliable.  Objective reporting comes from underground sources, who do not have a complete picture. For example, it is impossible to know how many Syrians have been killed in the last year or what the state of the health system is. Any objective fact that does come to light from an official news source may be accurate but partial as these governments tend to censure negative news. So, sometimes the media reports nothing because there is nothing to report.

Still, some would say that the Israeli media has an unspoken policy of neglecting the region.  I strongly doubt it as freedom of the press is still strong enough to prevent government-inspired news blackout over the long term. I don’t buy this conspiracy theory.

To be fair, many countries tend to ignore their closest neighbors. The American press has extremely little to say about Canada and Mexico.  The French hear more about Israel than Belgium, with whom they share a common language, mostly. I wonder how much news Londoners receive on Wales and Scotland, not to mention Northern Ireland. The BBC even ignores the weather in the Republic of Ireland, as a policy in my opinion, even it reports it in Northern Ireland. I don’t know if this regional blindness applies to Asia or South or central America but would be interested in finding out.

So, t New Yorkers are not alone in having their vision affected by culture and media. Physical distance and economic impact have less influence on our media than one would think.  The media worldwide is farsighted, i.e., hyperopic.

A Tempest in a Teacup

The word “exotic” can be defined as that what is extraordinary.  For example, blonds are exotic in the Middle East but quite commonplace in Scandinavia.  When a phenomenon is exotic, it creates problems of description.  While the dictionary literally translates words from language to languages, the phenomenon they describe can in practice vary, as in the example of weather.

Rain in some quantity is essentially a global event experienced by basically all cultures.  So, the word storm exists in all languages. However, it means different things to different people.  I lived in (Western) Oregon, home of such classic jokes as “It rains twice a year, from January to June and June to January” and “Oregonians don’t tan; they rust” (To be fair, the same jokes are made about the northern half of the Pacific Northwest, Washington state).  If the weather forecaster mentioned a storm, it had to be more than the usual constant piss outside, something with high winds and torrential rain.  There was no purpose in saying there was a storm outside to describe the constant fall of water particles typical of nine months of the year (in a good year).  I imagine that the British also can relate to this.   By contrast, in the arid Middle East, a storm is anything more than a half a day of rain.  A whole slew of experts appear on television to advise the public how to prepare for the event, each and every millimeter of rain, in terms of dressing children, driving precautions, and staying healthy.  Two days later, the whole nation joyfully listens how the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) went up such and such millimeters and is this far from the red line.  The only real damage is a few more car accidents than usual and a few low lying areas get flooded (as they do every year due to non-existent drainage).  However, you have to watch out for that storm.

In contrast, there is the wonderful term heat wave.  In northern Europe and parts of the United States, a heat wave is anything beyond 30° C (86° F) for more than three days.  The main reason for this panic is the lack of air circulation within the cramped cities, air conditioners, ice, or any other means of getting cool, and general knowledge of how to react to heat.  Hundreds people in Europe actually died during a recent wave there.  In the Middle East, this is not a heat wave; it is the climate.  From May until October, the temperature is over 30° C, often even at night, not taking account high humidity in the coastal areas, an added pleasure as any New Yorker would know.  A heat wave, like we are having now, is a week of over 104° with some added high humidity.  Now that is suffering, as we say as we sit in our air-conditioned cars, offices, and houses.

On a final note, I once asked a group of newly-arrived immigrants from the former Soviet Union what temperature they considered cold.  Apparently, most of them came from the Siberia region as their consensus was -30° C (-22° F).  They said that -20° C (-4° F) was quite tolerable.  To paraphrase Alice, a word means what I want it to mean.