No taxation without consternation?

The amicable woman behind the desk swiped my credit card and with my $75 copay I received another view of the great fallacy of American capitalist propaganda.

In Belgium’s universal healthcare system I paid 65 euros for a similar service, then two weeks later had 63 euros deposited back into my account by my health insurance, under which a full year cost less than half of what I pay per month now. But I don’t want to talk about how America pays more money for less care than anyone else. That’s been done.

Maximalius persuades Aurelianus to pay his taxes

No, instead of talking about the Republican’s last disgrace, let’s talk about their next one: taxes.

After all, that is Right’s attack line. “Sure healthcare’s affordable there, but you paid so much more in taxes.” I thought about that as I took one of the open chairs, upholstered as usual in an unfortunate camel color. Yes, I did pay higher taxes in Belgium, but I’m going to resist the desire to list the benefits I gained from them. Again, already well done elsewhere.

Because there’s something else going on, and sadly, it makes perfect sense. Vendors charge as much as consumers are willing to pay, which depends on what’s in their bank accounts. In the US we get a higher percentage of our paychecks into our accounts, and the prices go up. Then the bill comes due for all the services we want but haven’t paid for.

Public transit? Must be nice. Who pays for that?

Most ironic analogy? It’s like we’re paying taxes before making our deductions. That is, we pay our cost of living from our gross income, instead of our net. Then we pay for a (semi)functional system after the fact and wind up broke.

I just spent a few tortured minutes comparing the cost of living in my hometown to various beautiful European and Canadian cities, then did the same for New York since people like to talk about that place. I got data like this:

Consumer prices in Vancouver are 19.82% lower than in Oakland and 29.91% lower than NY

Rent prices in Paris are 46.60% lower than in Oakland and 57.33% lower than NY

Restaurant prices in Madrid are 29.99% lower than in Oakland and 38.92% lower than NY

Groceries prices in London are 34.07% lower than in Oakland and 39.77% lower than NY

Local Purchasing Power in Berlin is 21.40% higher than in Oakland and 11.55% higher than NY

Hey Marco, what tax bracket are you in?

Try it for yourself. The Bay Area is particularly expensive and Cost of Living is a complicated thing, but it seems clear to me that we in the US have been bamboozled into believing that not paying taxes saves us money, when it doesn’t. Especially not if we then want healthcare, education, roads, etc (not to mention the entertainment of bombing everywhere and giving festively massive tax cuts to extremely profitable oil companies). And paying taxes? We call it “government stealing my money!” Europeans call it “investing in our society.”

It’s all a bit dire, and I was feeling that squirmy feeling inside, the worm of fear for (and of) my country. Good timing for the next nice lady in scrubs to come tell me my test came back negative. Which is a positive. Everything’s all mixed up these days, but I’ll give thanks for what we have and work for what we don’t. And the sun is still shining. Happy tax season, everyone!

Patagonia? Nepal? Justin Bieber?

Italy gives 18 year olds 500 euros (~$540) for “cultural activities.” Museums, monuments, or sure, Justin Bieber concerts. With youth unemployment around 40% and a political system that doesn’t seem to give a merda about them, the program seeks to connect young males (let’s be honest) to western culture, hopefully protecting them from the siren calls of extremism.

This is supposed to LESSEN extremism?

It’s an interesting tool against the dissolution threatening most of the world after generations of “more money for the few.” But I’m especially interested since I’ll be taking another couple groups of fellow travelers through Europe in a few weeks. Tour season is back, and it’s occupying my entire horizon. Okay, most of the horizon. A little part of me is aware that I’ll finish in Paris on July 1, and wants to know where I’m going after that.

Back to California for family, friendships, and teaching? Easy laundry and my own bed. Perhaps writing.

Palate cleanser. Aaaaah. Nepal.

Or… I could go back to Nepal. I loved it there, but what would I do without those schools to teach in? Post-earthquake efforts and Annapurna temptations...

Patagonia’s been on the list for awhile, but I don’t really love three consecutive winters, and I don’t think I’d have enough time to do it justice.

Or I could finally attend to the gaping hole in my travel experience. The sine qua non of passport satisfaction. The filthy crown jewel of international experience. That is, I could go to India. July, possibly arriving just before the monsoon starts, experiencing the infamous heat and skin-crawling pre-wash stick of those last broiling days, then rinsed clean by the falling water of the Indian Ocean, refreshing the colors and transforming the thirsty landscape.

Or...well...or anything else on earth, more or less. With no romantic artery to rupture, the veins of my connections are elastic, and they say it’s all an oyster now.

So? Where should I go from Paris on July 1?

A Tahoe reminder

No signal. I love when it says that. In fact, seeking that elusive status was one of my reasons for going up to Tahoe in the first place. To spend two days in the white opulence of this year’s record snowfall on the branches of ponderosa pines that will carry three centuries of memory while they grow on slopes that slough off the passing of millennia. Puts these plastic pocket addictions into perspective.

It's not Tahoe without Emerald Bay

The absence of cell signal is getting harder to find. The previous day a millennial had told me his wild travel story “When I was in Morocco, I just, like, didn’t buy a sim-card for my phone? I just didn’t get one! I was there for three weeks, without a phone!” I waited to hear how this setup contributed to an adventure before realizing that being disconnected is itself an experience worth relating now.

Now up in the Sierras, the temptation of the phone tickled me. “I suppose I could post an instagram of this…” I thought, guilty maintenance of my sadly inactive account. But there it was: no signal. I smiled in the clear air and put the phone away.

A buddy and I snowshoed around Spooner Lake that first afternoon, trying out the clompy plastic flippers we’d rented. Walked a while before we realized the big snowy meadow WAS the lake, no indication of its watery underlayer except a small pool where winter-frozen fish floated belly-up in their silvery thousand, distracting from the darker wiggles of their still-living kin below.

“Maybe they’re just...hibernating.” One of us offered. “You know, that winter stasis thing.”

We watched the sluggish stirs of the living among the immobile remainders of their kin, inert and inverted. “No, probably not.” Snap a picture out of curiosity, then go check out those aspens…

The next day Fallen Leaf Lake was waiting for us, politely holding onto a layer of ice until we stood gaping at its side, then letting it dissolve in the crackled collisions of cold succumbing to an unseasonably warm sun.

Somebody benevolent left a canoe on the shore, so now we were paddling, jiggling in the wavelets kicked up by a wind that came to greet us when we left the stony shore behind.

Hot tubs were invented for cold nights beside snow embankments while stars monitor your relaxation below. Granted the electric lights killed them away years ago, but I could put them solidly in my mind’s moonroof anyway.

Hard to see the ski tracks down the western slope, and
trust me that that thing is even steeper than it looks.

Four lakes in two days has a certain symmetry, so we trudged out to Eagle Lake before joining the Sunday return. Snowballs rolling down the slopes to the snowmelt creek that earned its fame in the waterfall of name, and paid homage to the local lunatics who laid the sinuous tracks down sheer slopes when no one was there to see. What that must feel like, I can only envy.

Travel has driven home that America’s greatest treasure is its wild spaces. (Sorry Hollywood.) So it was nice to get out there and light a memory votive on the altar of one of California’s great ones. You can always count on a mountain to show things in perspective, and the signal was coming in loud and clear.

Seeing America as a Sri Lankan cop

Sri Lankan city of kings, one of the oldest continually-occupied cities on Earth, and focal point of Theravada Buddhism for centuries, Anuradhapura has many claims to fame, but I was having trouble seeing past the heat. The midday sun already felt like a sunburn in the sauna, and all I could think about was the relative cool of my stifling but shaded hotel room. But Anuradhapura had another surprise first.

I was sweltering, I don't know how these
guys survived to make the wedding

He pulled up on a thick-bodied motorcycle, ornate white cuffs on his uniform and a thick handlebar mustache that would have fit comfortably on a California Highway Patrolman. Some things say “cop” in any language. He stopped, appraised me through mirrored sunglasses, and waved me over without a smile. “You are a foreigner” he stated the obvious, then paused a long sweaty moment. “Where are you from?”

“America, the United States,” my customary answer covering both forms.

“Ah. America.” Another pause. It was the Obama years so I was relaxed, but the question of whose family might have been blown up by US weapons always lingers. But a grin split the stone crags of his face. “America, good!”

He asked me how I liked Sri Lanka and if I had already eaten lunch, then asked the question that I could see had been on his mind all along. “America, it is very dangerous there, isn’t it?”

There I was in northern Sri Lanka, one of the few tourists in a region abandoned by tourism during the atrocious Sri Lankan civil war. People all across Sri Lanka had urged me not to come to this region where land mines and trees decapitated by artillery fire were still common, but he thought America was the dangerous place.

“Um. No, not really. I don’t think America is dangerous” I said, anchored in the awareness that American fears are far outsized but not wanting to go into the fact that my white privilege gave me a different experience than people of color might report. And probably not a great idea to discuss police shootings with this policeman.

He leaned forward and asked “But is it not true that anyone can have a gun in America? Big guns. That there are millions of guns in the hands of normal people? Untrained people? Even mentally unwell and unstable people? Anyone who wants them, and as many as they like?”

He had me there. “Well….yes...” He sat back and grinned, having won his point and I had to concede that I was at more risk in the US than I was in war-torn Sri Lanka.

I remembered that perception of America after watching Trump humiliate our country in his meetings with Angela Merkel this week. Few people conflate citizens with their government, but that was easier when it was just policy differences. Now, when the very sanity and moral decency of our country is being daily called into question, I fear what everyone else on earth (outside of Russia perhaps) is thinking about us.

In one short month I’ll head back to Europe, including Merkel’s Germany, and I’m going to need these weeks to think of competent answers to the inevitable question “What the hell is going on with you Americans?”

The Dutch oven of modern politics

It’s disappointingly easy to convince people that The Outsiders, the They, are responsible for all your troubles and are a threat to your safety. Terrifyingly reliable, century by century. So I watched this week’s election in the Netherlands with massive trepidation.

Chandeliers over the canals of Amsterdam

The Netherlands. The country where so much of the freedom, liberty, and tolerance that form the foundation of Western civilization and success was born and developed. But also the most densely populated country in Europe, struggling with the shifts and currents of the world right now. So it was no surprise that they had their own “blame Islam” villain stirring up the darkest parts. But with such a proud tradition and identity as progressive thinkers, I had hope that the Dutch would resist the sort of self-sabotage that the UK and USA have embraced.

Particularly important, because what the Dutch did, the French and Germans would see. I’m not too worried about the Germans, who I think learned the lessons of the 20th century better than anyone, but a continental crack begun in Holland could spread. So how did it work out?

With impressive turnout, 87% of Dutch voters rejected the willful misunderstanding and moral weakness that have contaminated the White House and sought to spill like an overflowing septic tank into the canals of Amsterdam. I love the Dutch! Ik houd van Holland!

Of course there’s a but. Because Wilders was able to do the same as Trump in bullying the conversation. The voices with the least helpful contributions are doing the most talking, while misguided policies make things worse and a sinister power grows stronger. It’s up to the Dutch to show us how to handle this problem. No party has a majority, so the ruling coalition will include members with vastly different opinions. Which could go at least two ways:

Option 1: differing viewpoints lead to political brinksmanship and absolutism, ensuring that nothing gets done. Increased voter frustration feeds the extremist they just united to defeat and we all go down the tube. Let’s call this the “Republican Congress” technique.

Option 2: differing viewpoints give a voice to more people, and unity in the face of a commonly recognized danger leads to true compromises that no one loves but benefit everyone. Let’s call this approach “Democracy.”

That second one is tough. But if anyone can do it, it’s the Dutch. They’ve given us so much over the centuries, and we need them now more than ever.

P.S. I was delighted at the chance to guide two more of my beloved Best of Europe in 21 Days tours, and highly recommend them if you’d like to go over and see for yourself.

I want more women in my pocket

Estonian kroon

The pulled pork sandwich was delicious, the bun warm on fingertips rubbed safe-cracking sensitive by a good night of rock climbing. Then the best part of these nights: sitting around a table with a good group of friends. Now it was time to pay, and a multimedia presentation of plastic cards and paper bills fluttered onto the table.

“Who is on your money?” asked the visiting German. And I couldn’t resist. Ever since I found Estonia’s money adorned by painters, scientists, and chess players, I’ve been aware of our US proclivities.

“Our money has the presidents who killed the most people,” I had to point out.

The rest of the (short) post, and why Quakers, escaped slaves, and Joaquin Phoenix can help us redefine who we consider heroes on today's vagabondurges.com post, here.

How many lawyers does it take to change an Islamophobic lightbulb?

No. Today is too beautiful for what I wrote last night about the plotlines of the dystopian novel running off the page and into the headlines.

Instead I'm going to post about how Iraqi farmers, the Oakland government, and the lawyers of America are the sources of hope in our modern moment, on vagabondurges.com today.

An Athens inside

My socks had been cotton bayous in my tired shoes since leaving the hotel and I wanted nothing more than to lay down and read a book. But if it might be your only day in Athens, you have to walk up to the Acropolis. So I did.

View of Athens from near the church

Up stone streets where musicians played and babies sang, crowds of Greeks and visitors sweating in the same language, and onto the slopes of that historic place. Not yet to the big names, I came across a small church. Small. Too small to show up on any google map I can find.

Inside was cool and calm. Pillars and arches, some older than others, history’s refurbishment, and a few paintings whose holy figures have mattered much to many over the centuries.

I’m not much for dogma, and organized religion sometimes strikes me as distractions from any core message they purport to contain, but this place felt good, cool on a hot day, calm in a roiled month. I took a photo, then just relaxed to breathe the stillness within stone walls. It was just what I needed.

My wee chapel inside

And two tourists showed up, overly loud American conversation, clicking cell phone photos as they scanned for anything worth instagramming. Smacks of chewing gum and “OMG Sarah” clashed off the corners that had been quiet and they barged through behind the altar wall without any pause for deference or thought.

Bustled around, blabbered and dithered, then went on their youthful way. The lithic peace came back immediately. It hadn’t left. The calm of a longer perspective was there the whole time, no matter what jangling discordance of the moment intruded.

That’s how I’m trying to hold my soul today, as an Attorney General perjures himself and his party doesn’t seem to mind, as a sinister foreign plot contaminates my government, who receives it with open arms, and as common sense and human decency seem inadmissible to the court of public opinion.

They’ll probably bustle right back out again. In the meantime, I care, but I have within me a geologic permanence, as far as such things as stone can go. Quiet corridors of time that have echoed with centuries of errors and misfortune but come out sacred anyway.

Plus it’s Friday and life is good. Enjoy your weekends, my friends!