The Amalfi Coast Road

The adjectives pour out riding along the Amalfi Coast road. First, spectacular, amazing, thrilling (scenic is too tame). Second, treacherous, dangerous, life-threatening, maddening. From Salerno west to Positano, it winds up and down, around hundreds of bends and turns, hugging the rock-cliff shore above the turquoise Mediterranean. It’s mostly little more than one-lane. Buses (and there are many) have difficulty getting around most of the turns without any on-coming traffic. With on-coming traffic, there’s a humorous (if you’re watching from a safe distance) and frightening (if you’re a bozo on the bus) dance of position and squeezing through the thin ribbon between rock and sea. Cars take chances passing blindly on the few brief straights, motorcycles just weave their way insanely through. But the view – the views – are well worth the fear. Spectacular, amazing, thrilling . . .

Idiot In A Strange Land

I was the witless victim of a scam in the Rome train station. Having nothing else to do, we had sat in our seats 45 minutes before our train to Salerno was to leave, and as soon as my wife had gone to the restroom, the guy came out of nowhere (as is their wont), looking like a homeless man with a faux badge – dirty jeans, T-shirt, oily disheveled hair . . . and a laminated badge with picture of someone on it pinned to his chest. He sat down opposite me, the only other person in the car, and asked for my ticket, which I gave to him. He had a laminated badge. In Italian (which I neither speak nor understand) he says that I need to pay an additional €20 as a fee for going from Naples (one stop for the train) to Salerno (the next). I point out that I’ve already paid for the tickets to go to Salerno, but he has a ragged book with figures he’s written in, and asks me to write my name and destination and €20 to his list in his book. I protest slightly, but finally just give him his (formerly my) €20. He leaves, and I already know I’ve been had.

He obviously had me tagged as an easy mark as we were getting on the train, and waited on my wife to leave to get one-on-one with me, the only one in the car. If there would have been anyone else around, they would have no doubt spoken up against the scam. If the transaction would have been in English (or if I were fluent in Italian), it would have been very different:  “You need to pay me an additional €20 fee to go to Salerno.” “Who are you? And no I don’t.” “Yes, you do, look at my laminated badge and ragged book.” “Why don’t we find the conductor, who, if there were such a fee, would be the one to collect it?” But I don’t speak Italian, and so was intimidated, an idiot confronted by an ill-dressed con artist. As I handed over the €20 bill, I was telling myself, “You deserve to lose this, you dumb asshole.” There is, at least, some comfort in being a knowing fool.

Slashes and Dashes

SPOILER ALERT: Following is a rant that is of no use or interest to anyone whatsoever. Consider yourself forewarned.

Regularly, I hear people on the radio or TV who provide inaccurate URL addresses, typically involving two misunderstandings of Internet language:

(1) Backslash. You hear this error frequently (much too often) in giving URLs orally, usually something like “http, colon, backslash, backslash, idiotsonparade [one word], dot  com, backslash, call” for http://idiotsonparade.com/call. Those slashes are not backslashes (\) but rather just slashes (/), an error that goes back to the old days of DOS language, which really did use backslashes. But URLs these days don’t.

(2) Dash. “idiots-on-parade” is not “idiots, dash, on, dash, parade,” but rather “idiots, hyphen, on, hyphen, parade.” A hyphen is a short line (-), the one used in URL addresses. A dash is a longer line, formed either by two hyphens (--) or by a word processing program symbol (—), neither of which is recognized in URL language.

It’s not that difficult, people. Just learn the language — slash and hyphen, not backslash and dash.

Parla inglese?

In preparation for a trip to Italy’s Amalfi coast, I’ve been spending some time trying to learn the basics of the language, as least to be able to say “I don’t speak Italian” (Non parlo italiano) and “Do you speak English?” (Parla inglese?). On previous trips to Italy, these are the two phrases that have been the most useful, and I’ve picked them up again fairly quickly, though I wouldn’t say fluently. I’m sure whatever utterance I spit out attempting those two phrases will convey the idea that I don’t speak Italian and I hope the listener speaks at least a rudimentary English. And the fact that I make the effort to say I don’t speak Italian in Italian (however ironic) at least shows a sense of respect to those I’m imposing on.

But I’ve also been trying to go beyond expressing my obvious inability to speak or understand Italian. I’m sure it would be magnanimous of me to ask for directions in the language of the natives (Dov’e la stazione? or Come ci si arriva?), or order at a restaurant (Sono pronto perordinare or Vorrei una bottiglia di vino rosso), or navigate public transportation (Quest autobus va a Ravello? or Penso di essermi perso). But what if such conversation starters result in conversations? I’d be lost after my initial query or request, not understanding directions or costs or follow-up questions and immediately have to retreat to my stand-by, Non parlo italiano, no doubt to be met with the disconcerted Allora perche diavolo l’hai detto in italiano? No, it’s probably best to just begin with Parla inglese? And if the answer is Non, there’s always mumbling and pointing. That works surprisingly often.

AARP Wants Me To Die

AARP wants me to die. First, they want me to renew my membership with a “special offer” of five years for only $49 – “Less than 82 cents each month!” Then they want me to die. Or to be more charitable, they’re betting that I’m going to die before the five years are up. At least that’s the way I read the offer: If I buy in for five years, it’s only a deal if I live for the full five years. If I die after, say, three years (and certainly if I die after one or two years), they get an extra two (or three or four) years of membership dues (yes, discounted, but still) that I wouldn’t have otherwise bought. I don’t know if it’s sucker bet or not. I’m not expecting to die in the next five years. But who is?

I joined AARP when I turned 50, 13 years ago, only for the discounts on hotels, museums, restaurants, and so forth. I didn’t particularly like the idea of joining a club for codgers. But I did like the discounts. And I suppose that’s the reason I’ll probably take this new bet and double-down on the next five years.

Sweet Swine, Internet, and Politics

Politics in the age of the Internet is becoming much more fun. Case in point: A couple of days ago, a woman in Maryland, Mirlande Wilson, came forward to say that she had won part of the $656 million Mega Millions jackpot from last weekend. But she had lost the ticket. At a McDonald’s where she worked. At the press conference – where she didn’t say anything except that she’d lost the ticket – she wore a cap (a not very sartorially appropriate accessory when claiming several hundred million dollars in prize money) that bore the strange “Sweet Swine Pork Rinds.”

How is this political or involve the Internet? Soon after the woman’s story was published, someone noticed that when you Google “Sweet Swine Pork Rinds” (I won’t venture into why you Google that in the first place) the top link is to an anti-Romney website. The suspicion was that the whole lost ticket claim was a ruse to lure unsuspecting citizens who would see the cap and innocently Google “Sweet Swine Pork Rinds” and be taken to the anti-Romney site (where, I suppose, they would be indoctrinated against the former Governor).

But Scott Crider, the owner of the anti-Romney site, “Dogs Against Romney,” claims he just grabbed the SweetSwinePorkRinds.com domain name (for $9.99) when he saw the compelling cap in order to draw more viewers to his blog. “Dogs Against Romney” is narrated by Rusty the dog, and in the past day Crider has created another anti-Romney website, “Hogs Against Romney,” narrated by Wilbur the pig. Rusty and Wilbur are both concerned about Romney’s lack of compassion for animals, as demonstrated by his driving from Massachusetts to Toronto with his dog Seamus strapped to the top of his car. Crider, I suspect, has more political motives. Or at least more entrepreneurial: Both sites are selling an array of t-shirts and caps and bumper stickers.

There’s an interesting convergence here of media and internet and politics that’s odd but promising. I doubt that Crider (who lives in Alabama) is complicit with any conspiracy with Wilson (who lives in Maryland) to hype his anti-Romney websites. But he did use her odd cap, prominent in the photos of her, to draw people interested (for whatever possible reason) in finding out what “Sweet Swine Pork Rinds” are to his websites. Why do I feel this could just be the beginning of a very interesting future in the web of the web?

Strip Search

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable searches . . . shall not be violated.” Until now. Today the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that prison officers can strip-search anyone arrested for any offense – parking ticket, violating a leash law, jaywalking, whatever – without any reasonable suspicion of contraband. The decision involved a BMW dealer whose wife was pulled over for speeding and he, in the passenger seat, was tagged for having an unpaid fine (which had in fact been paid several years earlier). When he entered the jail he was forced to strip, display his genitals, squat, and spread his butt-cheeks. Because of an (already paid) unpaid fine. (By the way, the man also happened to be black. But I’m sure that didn’t factor into any of this.) To say this was demeaning is an understatement. In the swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that “people detained for minor offenses can turn out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals.” He cited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh as an example, arrested initially for driving without a license plate. He added, “One of the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks was stopped and ticketed for speeding just two days before” the attack. What he doesn’t say is that Timothy McVeigh, if he was strip-searched at all after his original arrest, wasn’t carrying any contraband, and the “one of the terrorists” wasn’t put in jail or strip-searched and probably didn’t have any contraband on his body; he was just issued a ticket; under Kennedy’s reasoning, perhaps we should strip-search everyone who’s issued a traffic ticket. Truth is “the right of the people to be secure in their persons” is a right to privacy, if not dignity. And strip-searching anyone and everyone who is incarcerated for whatever reason in whatever penal facility is a violation of that right and an unreasonable search. As the non-non-fine-paying suspect in the court case said, “It was humiliating. It made me feel less than a man.” And indeed this decision should make us all feel less than free.