by Dave Barry
What is the cause of this disgraceful lack of knowledge? I blame the same institution that is responsible for crime, sex, godlessness, and millions of square miles of badly drawn refrigerator art: our school system. I studied geography in the fifth grade, and I remember that instead of just TELLING us where things were, the teacher insisted that we make relief maps of the United States by mixing flour and water into a paste and smearing it on a shirt cardboard so as to form important geographical features such as the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, Disneyland, etc. Evidently I put too much water in my paste, because my United States was a featureless amoeba-like blob, with whole population centers such as New England oozing completely off the cardboard and forming new, uncharted territories on the floor.
As a direct result, I grew up, like most Americans, with a poor grasp of geography. That is why, in a recent column about nude TV weather forecasts in the Czech Republic, I made the following statement, which turns out to be incorrect: “Until 1993, the Czech Republic was connected with Slovakia; together they went by the name ‘Hungary.’ ”
This is simply not true, as was pointed out to me by many informed readers. Some of these people were quite upset, as we see from these quotes from their letters, which I am not making up:
“Clearly, your knowledge of historical facts is a clear example that the dumbing down of America has succeeded.”
“It is disgusting to find out that you columnists know so little. You probably do not know where Vietnam or Indonesia is located. It is not uncommon that the American children do not even know or care where Mexico is situated. And your adults are not better. Thank God, I received my education in Europe.”
“The column’s credibility was tainted by the gaffe.”
“How in the world did this get through the editors?”
In response, let me first state that, in the famous words of Thomas Jefferson, “The buck stops here.” If there is a gaffe tainting my column, I take full responsibility for it. It is NOT the fault of the editors; I’m sure they never saw it. Modern newspaper editors don’t have time to read the newspaper; they spend their days in lengthy “brainstorming” sessions with other editors wherein they try to decide what to do about the Internet.
Second, Mr. “I-Was-Educated-In-Europe”: I do TOO know where Vietnam (or, as it is sometimes called, “Indonesia”) is located: It is located overseas. So there! And speaking of locating things: If the people in Europe are SOOOOOO smart, how come so many of them can’t seem to locate the deodorant, huh?
But there is no need to become petty or defensive. The simple fact is, I “blew it,” and I want to set the record straight now: When the Czech Republic and Slovakia were connected, they were called—this now seems SO obvious, when I look at the names “Czech” and “Slovakia” together—“The Netherlands.” (Incidentally, this was the original location of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.)
I pledge that from now on I will strive for geographical accuracy in my columns. You parents can also help to raise our national “Geography IQ”: The next time your kids ask if they can watch TV or play a video game or take their insulin, you should say: “No! Not until you name all six major continents!” (Answer: America, Central America, South America, Latin America, Euthanasia, and Shaquille O’Neal).
In closing, I wish to apologize to any readers of Czech descent whom I offended by my error. I also want to thank those who sent nice letters, especially Ed Cerny of Conway, South Carolina, who wrote to tell me that at one time the motto of the official Czech airline was: “OK and Getting Better.” This really makes me want to go there. By bus.
Parlez-Vous Français?
This summer, for my vacation, I went to Paris, France. I went there to follow in the footsteps of such great writers as Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, and “F.” Scott Fitzgerald, all of whom, for the record, are currently dead.
I blame the Parisian drivers. Paris has only one vacant parking space, which is currently under heavy police guard in the Louvre museum. This means that thousands of frustrated motorists have been driving around the city since the reign of King Maurice XVII looking for a space, and the way they relieve their frustrations is by aiming at pedestrians, whom they will follow onto the sidewalk if necessary. Often the only way to escape them is to duck into one of Paris’s historic cathedrals, which fortunately are located about every 25 feet (or 83.13 liters).
Nevertheless it’s very pleasant to walk around Paris and feel—as so many Americans feel when they’re in that incredibly beautiful city—fat. Because the fact is that we Americans look like enormous sneaker-wearing beef cattle compared to the Parisians, who tend to be very slim, with an average body weight of 38 pounds (7.83 meters). It’s odd that the French appear to be in such good shape, because the major activity in Paris, aside from trying to run over pedestrians, is sitting around in cafés for days at a time looking French.
Sometimes we Americans try to blend in to the café scene, but the French immediately spot us as impostors, because we cannot pronounce the Secret French Code letter, which is “r.” They have learned to say “r” in a certain secret way that sounds as though they are trying to dislodge a live eel from their esophagus. It is virtually impossible for a non-French person to make this sound; this is how the Parisian café waiters figure out that you are an American, even if you are attempting to pass as French:
WAITER: Bonjour. Je suspect que vous êtes American. (“Good day. I suspect that you are American.”)
YOU: Mais je ne portes pas les Nikes! (“But I am not wearing the sneakers!”)
WAITER: Au quais, monsieur pantalons intelligents, prononcez le mot “Rouen.” (“OK, Mr. Smarty Pants, pronounce the word ‘Rouen.’ ”)
YOU: Woon. (“Woon.”)
WAITER: Si vous êtes français, je suis l’Homme de la Batte. (“If you are French, I am Batman.”)
The other surefire way to tell the difference between French people and Americans in a café is that the French are all smoking, whereas the Americans are all trying to figure out how much to tip. The tourist guidebooks are vague about tipping: They tell you that a service charge is USUALLY included in your bill, but it is not ALWAYS included, and even if it IS included, it is not necessarily TOTALLY included. On top of that, to convert from French money to American, you have to divide by six, and I have yet to meet anybody who can do this.
And so while the French are lounging and smoking and writing novels, we Americans spend our café time darting nervous glances at the bill, which is often just a piece of paper with a lone, mysterious, not-divisible-by-six number scrawled on it such as “83.” We almost always end up overtipping, because we’re afraid that otherwise the waiter will make us say another “R” word. I frankly don’t know how the French handle tipping, because in my two weeks in Paris I never saw a French person actually leave a café.
Not that I am being critical. As a professional journalist, I like the idea of a society where it is considered an acceptable occupation to basically sit around and drink. In fact, I liked almost everything about Paris. The city is gorgeous, the food is wonderful, and they have these really swoopy high-tech public pay toilets on the streets that look as though, if you went into one, you might get beamed up to the Mother Ship. Also Paris has a terrific subway system, Le Metro (literally, “The Metro”). I always felt safe and comfortable in the Metro, although one time, when I was waiting for a train, the loudspeaker made an announcement in French, which was repeated in English, and I swear this was the whole thing: “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Robbers are in the station. Thank you.” None of the Parisians seemed the least bit alarmed, and nobody robbed me, which was a good thing, because I would have had no idea how much to tip.
I have run out of space here, but in next week’s column I will tell you about some of the famous tourist attractions of Paris, such as the L’Arc D. Triomphe, Notre Dame, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, etc. So until next week, as the French say, “Au revoir.” (Literally, “Woon.”)
&nbs
p; An Aesthetically Challenged American in Paris (Part II)
Today I’ll be concluding my two-part series on Paris, France. In writing this series, my goal, as a journalist, is to provide you with enough information about this beautiful and culturally important city so that I can claim my summer vacation trip there as a tax deduction.
My topic in Part II is the historic tourist attractions of Paris. The Parisians have been building historic attractions for more than 1,500 years as part of a coordinated effort to kill whatever tourists manage to escape the drivers. The key is stairs. Most tourist attractions, such as L’Arc de Triomphe (literally, “The Lark of Triumph”) and the Hunchback of Notre Dame Cathedral, have some kind of lookout point at the top that you, the tourist, are encouraged to climb to via a dark and scary medieval stone staircase containing at least 5,789 steps and the skeletons of previous tourists (you can tell which skeletons are American, because they’re wearing sneakers). If you make it to the top, you are rewarded with a sweeping panoramic view of dark spots before your eyes caused by lack of oxygen. Meanwhile, down at street level, the Parisians are smoking cigarettes and remarking, in French, “Some of them are still alive! We must build more medieval steps!”
Of course the tallest monument in Paris is the Eiffel Tower, named for the visionary engineer who designed it, Fred Tower. The good news is, there are elevators to the top. The bad news is, pretty much the entire tourist population of Europe is up there taking flash pictures of itself. There are so many people crowded into the smallish observation area that you get the feeling, crazy as it seems, that the whole darned Eiffel Tower is going to topple over. Ha ha! In fact this has happened only twice since 1991.
Paris also has many excellent art museums, the most famous being the Louvre (pronounced “Woon”). If you plan to visit it, you should allow yourself plenty of time to see everything—say, four years—because the Louvre is the size of Connecticut, only with more stairs. The museum contains 30,000 pieces of painting and sculpture, and as you walk past these incredible works of art, depicting humanity through the centuries, you cannot help but be struck, as millions of people have been struck before you, by the fact that for a whole lot of those centuries, humanity was stark naked. To judge from the Louvre, until about 1900, everybody on Earth—men, women, children, gods, goddesses, horses—basically just stood around all the time without a stitch of clothing on. There’s one gigantic painting of a bunch of warriors getting ready to go into battle, and all they’re wearing is swords. You expect to see a comics-style speech balloon coming out of the lead warrior’s mouth, saying, “Fight hard, men! If we win the war, we can afford pants!”
I think the reason why the Mona Lisa is so famous is that she’s just about the only artistic subject in the Louvre who’s wearing clothes. On any given day, every tourist in Europe who is not on top of the Eiffel Tower is gathered in front of the Mona Lisa, who gazes out at the crowd with the enigmatic expression of a person who is pondering the timeless question: “How come they keep taking flash photographs, even though the signs specifically prohibit this?”
I enjoyed the art museums, but for me the most moving cultural experience I had in Paris was—and you may call me a big fat stupid low-rent American pig if you wish—visiting a gourmet food store called Fauchon (pronounced “Woon”), which contains two-thirds of the world’s calorie supply. In the great art museums, I eventually reached a saturation point and found myself walking right past brilliant masterpiece paintings by van Gogh, Renoir, Matisse, LeRoy Neiman, etc., without even glancing at them; whereas after a lengthy period of browsing in Fauchon, I was still enthusiastically remarking, with genuine artistic appreciation: “Whoa! Check out THESE éclairs!”
In conclusion, I would say that Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, and its inhabitants have an amazing sense of “savoir-faire,” which means, literally, “knowing how to extinguish a fire.” I say this because one Sunday afternoon I was in a crowded café when smoke started billowing from a cabinet into which waiters had been stuffing trash. It was a semi-scary situation; I stood up and gestured toward the smoke in an alarmed American manner, but the French diners paid no attention. In a moment, a waiter appeared carrying some food; he noted the smoke, served the food, went away, then returned to douse the fire with, I swear, a bottle of mineral water. And you just know it was the correct kind of mineral water for that kind of fire. So the meal ended up being very pleasant. It was also—I state this for the benefit of the Internal Revenue Service—quite expensive.
A Blatant Case of Slanted Journalism
The time has come for us, as a nation, to resolve this wrenching issue, so that we can move on. This issue has been with us for far too long, weighing on our minds, sitting heavy on our hearts, bloating the intestines of our national consciousness with the twin gases of partisanship and hate.
I am referring, as you have no doubt gathered, to the bitter controversy concerning the location of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This controversy got started last summer when I wrote a column in which I stated that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is located in Paris, France. I received several dozen letters from readers, many of them quite angry, stating that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is in fact located in an Italian city called “Pisa.”
Now, I happen to be known in journalism circles as a big stickler for accuracy. I have a stickle the size of a fire hydrant. So when I got these critical letters, I felt that I had no choice but to swallow my pride and send these readers individual notes informing them that they were mistaken, because the Leaning Tower of Pisa had been moved to Paris in 1994. At that point, I assumed that the matter was settled. But then I got another letter from one of my original critics, Mrs. Herbert H. Harder of Benton, Kansas. Mrs. Harder’s letter, which I am not making up, stated:
“I still don’t believe the real original Leaning Tower of Pisa was or ever will be moved to Paris. First of all, I think Pisa, Italy, would never, never allow such a thing to happen . . . To move the Pisa, Italy, real Tower of Pisa would require a cost that would be prohibitive.”
To clinch her argument, Mrs. Harder cited the ultimate authority:
“I stopped at a Travel Agency and asked if they had heard anything about the Leaning Tower of Pisa having been moved. Of course, they hadn’t.”
When you have been in journalism as long as I have (6,000 years), you get used to members of the public making all kinds of wacky claims, such as that the CIA has placed radio receivers in their teeth, or aliens have invaded Earth, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa is located in Italy. So I was frankly inclined to simply ignore Mrs. Harder’s letter. But then I got to thinking about a recent public survey about journalism credibility, conducted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (motto: “Proudly Maintaining the [Motto Continued on Page A-34)”]. The ASNE did the survey to find out why the public does not trust us in the news media. The survey showed that you, the public, think that we:
Is guilty of many grammar and spelling errores.
Rely on what one highly placed ASNE executive described as “too many unnamed sources.”
Use any excuse to print sensationalistic trash, such as the rumor that reportedly might be printed in an upcoming issue of Hustler magazine concerning an allegation that Kenneth Starr got at least 60 percent of the current Spice Girls pregnant.
Allow our news judgment to be affected by big advertisers such as General Motors, whose cars are not only fun and reliable, but also prevent cancer.
7. Are just generally careless and sloppy.
The survey also showed that the public thinks these problems have worsened in recent years. I can explain this. In the old days, newspaper stories were checked by editors before being printed; today, editors are busy doing surveys on declining journalism credibility, so they have no time to look at the actual newspaper. (For example, if the phrase “stickle the size of a fire hydrant” appeared in this column, no editor has read it.)
The point is that we have big problems in the news business. But we al
so have a proud tradition of righting wrongs, expressed in the old saying: “When you make a mistake, have the courage to print a correction that is too small to locate without an electron microscope.”
And that is why, when I received the letter from Mrs. Herbert H. Harder of Benton, Kansas, claiming that the Leaning Tower of Pisa is located in Italy, rather than simply tearing it into tiny pieces and feeding them to a hamster, I said to myself, “What if maybe—just maybe—Mrs. Herbert H. Harder of Benton, Kansas, is correct?” And so, after some “nosing around,” I uncovered the following information:
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is, in fact, located in Italy. However, under the Treaty of Ghent, which was signed by Charles “D” Gaulle and Henry VI, Italy is, legally, part of Paris, France.
The “Leaning” Tower of Pisa is in fact perfectly vertical. All the OTHER buildings in Pisa are leaning, and the residents walk around on special shoes with one heel way higher than the other.
According to a very highly placed source, both Charles “D” Gaulle and Henry VI got Spice Girls pregnant.
I hope this clears everything up. If you have any questions about this, or any other article in today’s newspaper, please do not hesitate to check with your travel agent. Or, if you prefer, you can contact us here at the newspaper directly, via the receivers in our teeth.
Prison Is Deductible
It’s time for my annual tax-advice column, which always draws an enthusiastic response from grateful readers.
“Dear Dave,” goes a typical letter. “Last year, following your advice, I was able to receive a large tax refund simply by claiming a $43,000 business deduction for ‘paste.’ I am currently chained to a wall in federal prison, but they tell me that, with good behavior, in 25 years they’ll remove the skull screws. Thanks a lot!”