coldhearted scientist وداد

My roof is leaking. Since Gustav, who dislodged several of my shingles, it has rained steadily and hard. Now there is water running down an interior wall, coming from the attic. After Katrina my insurance deductible for wind related damage in named storms was raised to $2,980. Ave Maria. This, however, is the kind of reason I do not like to evacuate – who wants to come home to this days later, as opposed to catch it when it starts? At least I can protect the floors. And I wonder: if one evacuates, should one include on one’s list of things to do to secure the house taking up rugs and covering all wooden floors with plastic sheeting? What a pain.

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It is said that the pregnancy of Bristol Palin cannot be discussed, for various reasons having to do with the way the national discourse on such matters has been formed over the past thirty years. I will therefore discuss it. I have four official things to say. Recusatio: I will not say that I hope Bristol’s decision here has not been made so as to further her mother’s political career. Now, on to my main points:

One. Abstinence education clearly does not work.

Two. A great deal of work was done in the twentieth century so that girls Bristol’s age would not have to walk into marriages like this one. Times have changed.

Three. In my home economics class we learned that teen marriages tended not to work well, especially for the girl, that pregnancy was not a good reason to marry, and that for the already married, having a baby would not save the relationship. Again, times have changed.

Four. This is the kind of situation that actual “white trash” wring their hands over. It is not what they hope for, because if you are actually poor, you know what happens next in scenarios like these. With money, it is another matter, although not necessarily a better situation.

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One of the electrical workers who came to my house was a Laotian immigrant who had clearly learned English from country Cajuns, who had clearly learned it from country English speakers, so he mixed the Cajun and the Laotian accent to say, “You don’t have no air conditioning.” That is fine in and of itself, largely because this man was using normal and comprehensible grammar for the accent he was clearly aiming to perfect, in an area where that grammar and that accent are common. But it reminded me suddenly of some people speaking English in white collar settings in Peru, who had not learned it informally but at an expensive language academy.

They had been carefully taught to say, “What you gonna do is, you gonna make a right at the second light and…”. They were saying this in very educated tones, because they were highly educated engineers talking to other highly educated professionals. It showed me why foreign language teachers should always teach standard grammar, even if regional and informal speech registers seem “cooler.” It is truly dissonant to hear regionalisms and informalities in an accent which does not correspond to them, and to have to interpret speech made in registers which do not correspond to the situation at hand. In airports, for instance, if the agents want to speak English and are speaking with a heavy foreign accent, it is much easier to understand them if they are using standard grammar and vocabulary, as opposed to attempting to use the local grammar and vocabulary of a region with which neither they nor their interlocutors are necessarily familiar.

But they pay these high fees to language academies which teach them a form of English which will do them no good on the TOEFL or the GRE. It is scandalous in my view, and I understand perfectly the parents who say, “Don’t let those Americans teach your children. Send them to the British Cultural Institute.”

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Many people e-mailed to ask whether I were evacuating. I did not evacuate because (a) it was not mandatory, (b) securing the house and so on was already enough work, (c) in my situation it is virtually impossible to suffer more than moderate discomfort in a hurricane, (d) evacuating is expensive, it is work, and it consumes petroleum based products, (e) I thought my anti-Gustav Hail Marys might have a better chance of arriving if I said them here, and (f) I wanted to be on the spot so as to be able to report upon and deal with damage as it happened, not later, when the repairmen are already scheduled to go elsewhere first and the damage is being exacerbated.

The hurricane was, however, very boring. There was the stress of worrying about New Orleans added to that of operating without electricity and under a curfew, and everything was closed. It was at least my fifth hurricane, and my second with damage. The first one was exciting to watch because hurricanes in real life really are exactly as seen on TV. The next ones were routine, since yes, we do have hurricanes here. But since Katrina they are nothing but worry.

I thought at one point: I should have evacuated, just for the sake of the trip. Now, though, I have heard from working class evacuees, trying not to spend too much money, and they had an awful, uncomfortable time. I have also heard from the middle class evacuees who wanted me to go with them.

I said they were smart to have gone because they went to a town which was open for business and had electricity. They said I was smart to have stayed because the traffic was awful getting there and they spent money they would have rather saved for the MLA. They had not been in the carefree mood vacation requires, and they carried the tension of the storm with them. Now they have a long drive home and will have to deal with their houses after that.

If one has unlimited funds, of course, one can book a vacation by plane. This is impractical since storms change course and there are many. Most people cannot book so many vacations. The only person I know who had the perfect evacuation plan in this storm, used frequent flyer miles. You can book up to the last minute with these, and there was a seat to the lovely city her family lives in. So she did get a free and pleasant vacation.

If I ever evacuate voluntarily, I will plan to do it on this model. Otherwise, tempting though evacuation may seem at times, I will stay – better prepared for each storm. I will do experiments to see exactly how luxurious I can make things. However, the use of generators is not allowed in this game – that would make it far too easy. I am interested in more inventive solutions such as solar battery chargers for computers. (You can apparently get solar panels to power at least parts of the outboard motor on your boat.)

Axé.