I have spent the last week or so being purposely out of the loop and away from a reliable internet connection. I would like to say that I missed being wired, or that I missed having news-on-demand. Except that I didn't really miss it. But the blog must go on, so I report below the news from my world of the past week:

The big news for my week was 22 inches of snow, which made for a (very) white Christmas. While it was going on, it was cozy to sit inside and wonder what would happen if it snowed forever. And, because it was Christmas day, we didn't really have anywhere to go anyway. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

After it was all over, I met my "plow-guy" (the guy who plows our driveway and the loop road that we share with our two neighbors) for the first time. He and I have had a business relationship for a number of years now, meaning that he plows the driveway and sends me a bill and I pay it, but I had never actually met him until Wednesday. In the spirit of the holiday, I offered him coffee, which he declined, and then he helped me shovel my car out (not part of his regular duties). The amazing thing about Vermont is that even 22 inches of snow didn't really slow things down -- whereas New York City shuts down for a week when that much snow falls, Vermont was up and running by 10:00 the next morning. And it wasn't just the stalwarts who were out and about then, but everyone was just going about their business just like normal.

Of course, we were vacationing, so business-as-usual meant playing in the snow. After the plow-guy came through, I discovered one of the unsung joys of 22 inches of soft pillowy snow: sledding on the driveway. Now, the thing you have to understand is that the driveway is somewhat steeply pitched, has a curve at the bottom and is lined by woods on either side. With some creative shoveling of snow back onto the nicely-plowed driveway (causing the adult me to cringe, even as the kid me was loving it), we were able to create three jumps and a banked curve at the bottom, as well as a ramp that launches your toboggan into the woods to the left of the driveway. At the top, we built a "speed ramp" that we climbed up onto in order to launch the sleds and build up speed for the jumps. [Sidebar: I once had a book in which you could explore your personality by making lists of various topics. One of the lists was "list all the times you have consciously put your life in danger". I now have an entry on that list...] And, of course, once the jumps and ramps and banks were built, what was left but to hurl ourselves down the hill, then drag ourselves and our sleds up the hill again, so that we could hurl ourselves down the hill again and again? Good clean American fun.

Anyway, after about an hour of sliding, falling, getting snow in our boots and just generally being free-spirits, we went back inside and drank hot- chocolate laced with Southern Comfort. It was fun to spend an hour being a kid, but I confess that I was just as happy, or happier, with the hot chocolate, the Christmas cookies and a warm fire.

I've tried, really I have, to stay away from the Trent Lott flap. But then along came Ann Coulter with possibly the stupidest article that I've seen on the subject to date. [link] Apparently, we've got this whole thing wrong. The problem with Lott isn't that he has foot-in-mouth disease, or that he said something that offended a large portion of Americans. The problem is the liberal media (again). It seems that the liberal media has been mistakenly laying the problem at the feet of the Republican Party, when any right-thinking person will recall that Strom Thurmond was a Democrat before and after he was a Dixiecrat, until he became a Republican. In the end, Coulter concludes that it's the Democrats who should apologize for being racists, not the pure-as-the-driven (white) snow Republicans.

Excuse me, but, huh? I'm sorry, but Coulter's argument makes no sense-- the Lott flap isn't about the content of Strom's 1948 campaign, or even about Thurmond himself; the jury is out on whether he was a rehabilitated racist or whether he merely gave that appearance. Frankly, whether he was a Democrat, a Dixiecrat or whatever is irrelevant. The flap is that in 2002, a Republican, not a Democrat, endorsed (or at least appeared to endorse) a segregationist agenda.

But somehow, Coulter still sees a vast left-wing conspiracy? Go figure.

I've noticed lately that I have begun to condone, even tacitly encourage, little white lies. Take my barber. I was in getting a haircut recently, and we got to talking about New Year's Eve, and what I was planning to do, and the like. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned that we have some close friends who are gourmet cooks, and that one of my most memorable New Year's Eves was spent at their home having a truly wonderful seven-course feast. Now, I like my barber, and he gives me a good haircut, but we've never discussed gourmet cooking before, and I know that we've never discussed my friends' meals. So I was somewhat surprised to hear him say, after I described this feast, "Yeah, that's right, you were mentioning that to me last time you were here".

This is where the condoning-white-lies part comes in. I'm sure that in the thirty-odd years that he has been barbering, he's learned that customers give better tips if you make them feel like yours is a personal relationship. And so his comment was intended to establish that personal connection, even if it wasn't true. But rather than call him on it, I simply nodded, and said, "yes, that's right." In other words, I lied to him. There was no point in embarrassing the man, certainly, and there was no harm in condoning his white-lie. But by doing so, I tacitly encouraged him to continue to fabricate elements of a conversation that we never had.

Conversations like this happen all the time -- when was the last time that someone said to you "Do you know so-and-so" and you lied and said "I have heard of so-and-so, but I've never met him/her" (or its variant, "The name is familiar, but I can't place it")? The response validates that knowing so-and-so is interesting, even if it isn't; and it gives the speaker permission to continue with a story about so-and-so, rather than creating that awkward pause while the speaker down-shifts into a new topic.

At the same time, these white lies got me to wondering: Assuming my barber was just making conversation (that is, assuming he didn't think he was actually remembering a conversation with me that didn't happen), then he knew that I was lying to him when I said "yes, that's right". Which makes the whole thing pointless, since both of know that we're both lying just for the sake of making conversation.

Not being an anthropologist, I have no good explanation for why we do this. I'm sure there's some hard-wired need in each of us to connect with our fellow travelers, and these little-white-lies are a safe and non-threatening way to establish the minimum necessary connection for society to function, without revealing our vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, I found the whole exchange just a little odd.

Brief Hits:

For an interesting discussion of the roots of Islamic anti-Semitism and its repercussions, consider an article by blogger Richard Webster. [link]. Although Webster's agenda is decidedly pro-Palestinian, he includes as an appendix to his article what appears to be a fairly balanced bibliography of links.

Thomas Friedman, writing in today's New York Times, talks about "Islamic Protestantism" in Iran, and tells us that the trial of Hashem Aghajari represents a true touchpoint in the conflict between the moderate and extremist arms of Islam. [link] As Friedman notes, the speech was recently translated by the MEMRI service [link]

Finally, for more about Aghajari, I recommend this interview with him conducted in August 2000. [link]