Around Bolinas, resident Elliott Kolker is now being called Aleut (as in a Native American from the Aleutian Islands) ever since his letter to the editor last Thursday bore the signature "Aleut Kolker." Friday, he called The Light to see what had happened. On a hunch, I ran "Elliott" through Spell Check on my computer, and, sure enough, it wanted to change the name to "Aleut." Another lesson in not totally trusting computers.
However, Spell Check didn’t hold a candle to Light photographer Barbara Thomas last week when it came to malaprops. Referring to the legendary jazz pianist, Thomas said she’d just seen a photo of Felonious Monk. That may be so, but since Thelonious has been dead for 19 years, it’s too late for him to face the music.
And while we’re clarifying things, I’ve discovered that some readers were confused by last week’s heading for this column, The cross-eyed bear. Well, here’s a hint: "Knowing how fickle some West Marin readers are, I was prepared for the cross-eyed bear when I stoically resumed publishing The Light." Slowly read that quote outloud two or three times, and you should have it.
As you know, how one hears something makes all the difference. For example, the ancient Greeks built a temple to Apollo at Delphi near Mount Parnassus, and many Greeks visited the temple to ask questions of an oracle in a cubby-hole under the temple. Unfortunately the Delphic oracle’s prophesies were notoriously ambiguous. One king, who asked what would happen if his army were to go into battle the next day, was told by the oracle, "A great kingdom will fall." Apparently overestimating the greatness of his enemy, the king went into battle and lost his kingdom.
As it happens, the Greek historian Plutarch (about 120 to 46 BC) was a priest at the temple and wrote much about the oracle, describing sweet vapors which she inhaled in her cubby-hole. Although scientists were long skeptical of these vapors, the July 28 issue of The Economist notes that researchers from Wesleyan University in Connecticut have finally solved the riddle.
They found that spring water in the cubby-hole gave off a gas called ethylene. "This substance smells sweet," wrote The Economist. "Moreover, breathing it often induces a state of euphoria. Sometimes, however, people have a more violent reaction. They become delirious and thrash around – a state that Plutarch also recorded. The priestess, it seems, was as much glue-sniffer as guru."
For my money, The Economist is the best newspaper in the United States at present – even if it looks like a newsmagazine such as Time or Newsweek. Not only is it well written, The Economist is about the only US newspaper that is not geo-centric. If the biggest news in the world this week is in the United States, that’s the cover story. But if it’s in India, Somalia, Australia, or Paraguay, that country is going to get the most coverage.
You may wonder how much you care about what’s going on in Paraguay, but The Economist will manage to get you interested. For example, the newspaper regularly publishes lists of the best-selling books in Western Europe with an indication of what they’re about. This week, the newspaper reported on what people are reading in Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, and (naturally) Paraguay. Is there anything to interest a US reader in that? I, for one, was surprised to learn that a Spanish-language version of some Harry Potter book heads the Top 10 in each of the four countries. In Chile and Paraguay, two Harry Potter books are in the Top 10; in Venezuela, there are three.
Books on self-help and improving marriages are as popular there as here, and discourses on politics are also best sellers. But there are some surprises. In Colombia, reports The Economist, the fourth-best-selling book, La Caverna, concerns "Plato, pottery, and the pressures of modern life."
Moreover, when an issue of The Economist is devoted to a trend, it’s not the "Will the Fall TV Lineups Return to Sitcoms?" sort of issue that typifies Newsweek. The cover story in The Economist this week, for example, was: "The Case for Legalizing Drugs." The 15-page-long treatise looked at drug trafficking in every part of the world.
When The Economist devoted a cover story to "The Sex Business" worldwide, it was equally comprehensive and typically full of unexpected facts. In writing about prostitution in the Middle East’s "Gulf states, where aristocratic Arabs are the best paying customers," The Economist noted, "Tastes are clear: local women are prized most highly (at up to $2,000, according to an insider); other Arab women come in second. Europeans and then Thai and Filipino women cost the least. The result? Moroccan prostitutes have been learning colloquial Gulf Arabic, so they can pass as locals and collect a higher fee."
Finally, I should mention The Economist’s world news roundup. This week’s installment was, as usual, full of snappy – if obscure – summaries, such as: "South Africa’s 83-year-old former president, Nelson Mandela, has prostate cancer. It is not expected to shorten his life, but it will hamper his role as peacemaker in Burundi." Or: "The European Commission published its ideas on how to make the EU more intelligible to its citizens. Some people understood them; few thought they would work."
The 157-year-old weekly newspaper notes that its goal is to take part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress." The paper is also a good read.