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Is There a WWI Statistician in the House?

I’m spending the evening confirming odd facts I’m using in my upcoming political book. Here are a few things I’ve learned:

While I call the mystic leader of the dervishes Mevlana, I guess most people refer to him as Rumi. It was the former editor of Reader’s Digestthat was made chairman of the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (illustrating how, rather than zeroing out PBS, the Bush administration wanted to give it a lobotomy). While “e pluribus unum” is our motto, Europe’s is “in varietate concordia” (united in diversity). I thought Berlin was one of the world’s biggest “Turkish cities” — but with 113,000 Turks, it would be only the 50th largest city in Turkey. Tirol includes parts of Italy and Austria, but not in inch of Germany. The female president of Finland is well into her second six-year term, running one of the most highly taxed countries anywhere, and she maintains her 75 percent approval rating. (What does she give those Finns for all that money?) I’m loving getting this book written.

Perhaps you can help me. I need to confirm figures on WWI that I remember from my college professor. I seem to remember that the French lost huge numbers of people in one day many times, and that by the end of WWI half of all the French men between the age of 15 and 30 were casualties. Can anyone tell me what the bloodiest single days in WWI were for the French? (For example, the British lost 20,000 on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.) Also, what was the population of France in 1914, and then what percent of its men (ages 15-30) were killed (or killed or wounded) in that “War to End All Wars”?

Thanks.

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Firsthand Accounts Make History Spring to Life

While working on my upcoming book about the value of thoughtful travel, I’ve been thinking about how having a guide (or a friend who functions as a guide) who actually lived through the local history heightens the experience for a traveler.

When I was just 14 years old in a dusty village on the border of Austria and Hungary, a family friend showed me the excitement of history by introducing me to a sage old man. As he spread lard on my bread, he shared his eyewitness account of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 (which sparked the beginning of World War I). That encounter instilled in me a life-long interest in history.

In Prague, I walked the path that my Czech friend Honza walked night after night in 1989 with 100,000 of his countrymen as they demanded freedom from their Soviet overlords, and finally won it. The walk culminated in front of a grand building where Honza said, “Night after night we assembled here, pulled out our keychains, and all jingled them at the President’s window, saying, ‘It’s time to go home now.’ Then one night we gathered…and he was gone. We had won our freedom.” Hearing Honza tell that story as we walked that same route drilled into me the jubilation of a small country winning its freedom from a big one.

My Norwegian uncle Thor gave me a similarly powerful experience in Oslo. While gazing at mosaic murals in the Oslo City Hall that celebrate the heroics of locals who stood strong against German occupation, Thor told me stories of growing up in a Nazi-ruled Norway. I wondered to what lengths I would go to win back a freedom lost.

In Ireland, I had a guide determined to make his country’s struggles vivid. He introduced me to Belfast’s Felons’ Club — where membership is limited to those who’ve spent at least a year and a day in a British prison for political crimes. Hearing heroic stories of Irish resistance while sharing a Guinness with a celebrity felon with the gift of gab gives you an affinity for their struggles. The next day I walked through the green-trimmed gravesites of his prison-mates who starved themselves to death for the cause of Irish independence.

El Salvador’s history is so recent, tragic, and fascinating that anyone you talk to becomes a tour guide. My Salvadoran guides with the greatest impact were the “Mothers of the Disappeared.” They told me their story while leafing through humble scrapbooks with photographs of their son’s bodies — mutilated and decapitated. Learning of a cruel government’s actions with those sad mothers left me with a lifetime souvenir: empathy for underdogs courageously standing up to their governments.

Tourists can go to Prague, Ireland, Norway, and Central America and learn nothing of a people’s struggles. Or, if traveling to broaden their world views, they can seek out opportunities to connect with people (whether professional guides or accidental guides) who can share perspective-changing stories.

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They Still Birth Pianos in Vienna

As I ponder my passion for Europe and why I’m a Europhile, I’ve recently been writing about my experience as a schoolboy visiting the Vienna factory of the most luxurious and expensive pianos in the world, Bösendorfer. Two blog entries ago, I mused that the old-fashioned quality of those pianos, built so lovingly that they were almost birthed and each had its own personality, likely is no longer the case in our fast-food world.

It’s exciting (or perhaps scary) how one’s writing can spread these days. I just received this email from Rupert Loeschnauer in Vienna, who assured me that their pianos are made “faithful to their traditional heritage.” (I’ll have to take him up on his offer next time I’m in Vienna.) Here’s his letter:

Dear Rick,

I found your interesting article (October 18) on HeraldNet. With great curiosity I read about your visit to Bösendorfer in Vienna back in the late 1960s and early ’70s and about your fear that old-time quality might have gone.

Don’t worry, Rick, the loving care for making our wonderful grands and pianos hasn’t gone. The employees in Bösendorfer factory, who are without exception great masters of their trade, have remained faithful to their traditional heritage. Still more than 10.000 production steps – most of them still done by hand – are executed per instrument to create a true work or art. Still we use the best materials for our pianos. And when it comes to the unique singing tone: we still treat the entire instrument as a resonating body, thereby achieving Bösendorfer’s unique richness of tone color and its typical singing timbre.

We would be glad, Rick, if we could host you another time in Vienna and show you that within our fast moving, mass-produced modern world you still can find traditional quality: products that are not manufactured but being birthed. How I like your words!

With best regards from Vienna Rupert Loeschnauer

I have a habit when I travel that I must open the keylid on any piano I see. The make of the piano gives me an indication of the values and priorities and appreciation of quality an establishment will have. While cheap Asian pianos dominate these days (I remember doing the math once and finding that one big Asian piano company produces as many pianos in a month as Bösendorfer does in 30 years), I’m always pleased (and impressed) to open the lid and see that classic Bösendorfer emblem. (In case you wondered, the Beatles played a Blutner, from East Germany.)

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Dropping in on Georgetown

Anne and I have been completely immersed at our daughter’s “parents’ weekend” here at Georgetown University in Washington DC. We have been getting to know her friends, teachers, deans, dorm, campus, and the surrounding neighborhood. She is just energized to learn and surrounded by new friends that will make the environment here even richer.

I don’t think Anne and I have ever wanted anything so much as to see our daughter Jackie get into this great school. It’s funny when you really want something badly and you have no power. We are so thankful she’s here.

While the students were carrying on with their regular class loads, parents were given a chance to sample the professors here. We attended a lecture by a psychology professor (Fathali Moghaddam) called “How Globalization Spurs Terrorism: Challenges for the Next President.” It reminded me how stimulating the university years are. Here’s a peek at my notes:

Threats of globalization hit different societies differently. We fear losing jobs, while many fear losing their culture.

The demands of the global economy (large-scale units) are pitted against the demands of cultural identity, causing anxiety. Thousands of years ago, the logical social unit was a group of around 500 people. Today that number is getting huge (with vast free trade zones). Cultural diversity is the victim. For example, it’s estimated that there were 15,000 languages on the planet 500 years ago. Today there are about 6,000. By 2100, there will be a predicted 2,000. A handful of languages go extinct every year.

Rising material expectations are unrealistic. Everyone wants to be rich as Orange County. That will result in some pushing and shoving.

Today there is greater movement of people and cultural forces without “pre-adaptation.” Groups are getting into contact without a gradual readiness for contact, resulting in more conflict.

“Sacred carriers” become more important to a group when it is under threat. That’s why the Islamic headscarf (symbolizing the traditional position of women in Islamic society, which is threatened by Western culture) is important to fundamentalist Muslims. That’s also why the American flag is most important to Americans who feel their way of life is threatened. We may ask why the scarf is such a bone of contention. They wonder the same about our flag.

Walking back to our Georgetown hotel — on well-worn red-brick sidewalks past stout and lovingly painted two-story buildings, square yet elegant, and kicking blazing golden leaves that just fell — I thought how great it is that Jackie is being exposed to people like professor Moghaddam, who’s from Iran (and who gave us his home phone when I promised him I’d encourage Jackie to consider him). As we walked, we thought Jackie will enjoy what must be one of the best “U districts” in the entire country. M Street and Wisconsin Avenue are a cancan of tempting places to shop, eat, and drink. I wear my little “Hoya Dad” pin with pride and gratitude. And I can only wonder about the fun and learning this school will bring Jackie.

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Fine Pianos and Cheese

When you travel, enjoy the cultural wonders. I used to be put off by those sophisticates in Europe. They’re so into their fine wine and stinky cheese, and even the cultural soil that created it all. But now I love being the cultural bumpkin.

Sure, I’m simple. I was raised thinking cheese is orange and the shape of the bread. Slap it on and…voilà! Cheese sandwich. Over there, cheese is not orange nor the shape of the bread. In France alone, you could eat a different cheese every day of the year. And it wouldn’t surprise me if people did. These people are passionate about their cheese.

I love it when my favorite restaurateur in Paris, Marie-Alice, takes me shopping in the morning and shows me what’s going to shape the menu tonight. She takes me into her favorite cheese shop. It’s a festival of mold. Picking up the moldiest, gooiest wad, Marie-Alice takes a deep whiff, and groans ecstatically, “Oh, Rick, smell zees cheese. It smells like zee feet of angels.”

I’m her wide-eyed student. It’s fun to be on the receiving end of all that cultural, gastronomic, and regional pride. I see it as a learning opportunity. Thankfully people are sophisticated about different things, and when we have the opportunity to meet the expert, it can be good for all.

While my father doesn’t know the first thing about cheese, he is sophisticated about pianos. He was a piano tuner in Seattle, and he imported fine pianos from Europe. When I was young, he took me to the Bösendorfer factory in Vienna, where the world’s finest pianos were made. I remember thinking they weren’t made — they were birthed. Touring the factory, which fills a former monastery, we learned how the wood was aged and the imported felt was made from just the right sheep’s wool. In each of the former monks’ cells, they proudly produced only two pianos per worker per year. The result of this lovingly labor-intensive production process: each piano had its own personality.

I remember going to Vienna on those first trips with my dad. Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, I’d join him on a flight to Vienna. They’d line up five or six of these grand pianos — the finest and most expensive in the world. I’d hop from bench to bench playing them as my dad would analyze the personality of each, matching it with his client’s taste back in Seattle. He’d make the selection, autograph the sounding board, they’d put it in a box, and ship it to some lucky American pianist. Bringing that Old World quality to the New World was the joy of my dad’s work.

While this old-time quality is gone — a casualty of our mass-produced modern world — perhaps having seen this is one of the reasons I’m enthusiastic about sharing the fine points of European culture. Bösendorfers may no longer be produced with such loving care. But, thankfully, the cheese still smells like zee feet of angels.