Dear Dr. Babooner,

I’m a political candidate for a major state office and I’m so excited about Election Day I can hardly wait! After months and months of trying to connect with the voters they will finally decide and even if I lose I won’t be mad because the end of the campaign means I can stop hanging out with my opponents. I don’t think the three guys who went to the moon were together as much as we’ve been in the last few weeks. Honestly, I see them more than the people in my family. If it’s Tuesday, this must be the breakfast forum at the League of Earnest Accountants.

It has come to the point where I know the other side’s arguments as well as my own. I never expected to memorize so many reasons why I’m inadequate, but I guess that’s what a career in politics does for you. Don’t get me wrong. They’re nice enough people, but there are limits to togetherness, or there should be. Even with people you sort of like you can know too much, and right now I feel like I know WAY too much about me and him and him. And confidentially, Dr. Babooner, I’m starting to think none of us would be a very good choice. Hope the voters don’t find out!

But that’s not my question. My problem has to do with etiquette, and this is it – even after all the struggling and maneuvering for an advantage, when we have our final debate I suspect I’ll be saying goodbye to these guys for quite a while, maybe forever. I think I’m going to miss them. Should I bring parting gifts, and if so, what?

Sincerely,
One of Three

I told One of Three it would be a very nice gesture to bring gifts for his political opponents on the occasion of their final debate, and by now he should know enough about them to buy just the right thing.

The hard part is how to bestow these gifts, since he will probably have to do it when they are all standing there together. It would be tacky to get each one the same item, like, say, a fruit basket. But he would want to be sure to spend roughly the same amount – it’s embarrassing to have a huge disparity in gift value, especially if one of the recipients is wealthy and the other is not.

And although they’ve spent a lot of time talking about it, cash is probably not a good choice as a parting gift for one’s political opponents.

But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?

The re-surfacing of trapped Chilean miners has set an upbeat tone for underground adventure this week.

Yesterday, tim described his childhood escapade using storm sewers to go to the store for cigarettes. Need I say it? Kids, don’t try this, really. Flash flooding and lung cancer are the very first things that come to my risk-averse mind, followed closely by enormous spiders and sudden earthquakes. Here’s an excerpt:

it was winter out so the underground route was warm (good news) but we all had our winter coats and boots so we were kind of klunky . the master map charter got messed up and we had to double back a couple times. in a few places the drain pipe got small and we had to take off jackets and shinney through. in other places the pipe was short and instead of walking a little hunched over you had to go for long distances with kness bent doing the duck walk and scraping your back on the concrete pipe above.

A vivid account of a bit of scary risk-taking, tim. But it does remind me that some people seem to enjoy navigating tight underground spaces. A family trip to Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park ten years ago opened my eyes to the caver culture. The area is shot through with subterranean passages, and on a tour of one less-than-mammoth cave a young guide described how she and her friends still spent their after hours squeezing through uncharted tunnels, just for the fun of it. Not for me, thanks.

If I’m going to go underground at all, it has to be with a jumpsuit, a hardhat and 10 billion dollars worth of burrowing and air handling equipment so I can stand tall, stay clean, and completely obliterate all icky worms and any other obstacles that might block my way.

That’s how they do it in Switzerland.

The Gotthard Base Tunnel will be the longest railway tunnel in the world when it is completed, 35.5 miles from end to end. The Swiss have been working on this one for 20 years – imagine having the political will to continue on such an expensive project for two decades! Given the same task, I’m afraid we would have abandoned it for political reasons at the first change of administrations. On Friday the Swiss had a long-awaited breakthrough.

Staged for the media? Of course. But if you’re going to spend that much time and money burrowing, shouldn’t there be someone there to marvel and applaud when you get to the end?

“Hey Ma! See what I did!”

“Nice, honey. But look at all the mud on your pants!”

What is the most impressive thing you’ve ever done with a shovel?

Wild goats in northern Italy are defying gravity on the face of the Cingino Dam. These animals are actually called Alpine Ibex, though one online account falsely labeled them Bighorn Sheep and magically transported the dam from the Alps to Montana.

That’s the internet for you, where any half-truth can make it around the world if it has shock value, plausibility and a certain wacky appeal. I’m inclined to call them Goat Flies and to claim they are sunning themselves on the south wall of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. We’ll see how far that goes.

Regardless of the details, it is remarkable to see animals with such a casual approach to verticality. They appear to be licking the surface of the structure, and some accounts suppose that it is a mineral, probably salt, that attracts them. At any rate, Alpine Ibex are very much unlike Trail Babooners, who suffer from fear of heights, fear of THINKING about heights, and extreme squeamishness when it comes to watching YouTube videos about mammals climbing things.

This video will simultaneously terrorize you if you have acrophobia, and soothe you if you enjoy the sound of 1,000 melodramatic, artificial strings.

Alpine Ibex mom to Alpine Ibex youth: “Just because all the other kids go climbing on the Cingino Dam, that doesn’t mean YOU have to do it too!”

Ever accept a dare that you wish you hadn’t?

One of my childhood flights of fancy when mom took us to the drive-up teller window was that I could climb into the tiny shuttle and ride it through the pneumatic tube from our car into the bank. Tight fit. Fun trip. It was the sort of ridiculous thing a kid imagines that would not be fun at all in reality, but that’s what crossed my mind watching Chilean miners climb into a narrow capsule to be pulled 2,000 feet through an angled tube to the surface.

The rescue will go on, without complications or setbacks we hope, for the next day or so. It makes surprisingly good television, bringing together all the key elements – danger, tension, suspense, success, joy, tearful hugging, repeat. With lots of time along the way for a message from our sponsors. There are cameras at either end of the journey and a single prominent wheel atop the hoisting structure that we can watch as it reels in the cable that’s attached to the rescue capsule. Keep an eye on that gizmo, an airy multi-spoked contraption reminiscent of Gandhi’s symbolic spinning wheel. It will wind up in a museum someday.

When we talked about this unfolding dilemma back in August, our shared wish was that the ending would be happy enough to trigger a cheesy disaster movie, ala “The Poseidon Adventure”, or perhaps some new kind of surrealist stage play. “Waiting for Gondola”, anyone? I suspect there will be a slew of paintings, sculptures and YouTube mash-ups, not to mention the books, possibly one from each of the 33 miners. If this were happening in the USA, the rescued men would need a publicity agency to manage their opportunities and to keep them out of trouble with an aggressive press that is voracious for details, positive or otherwise.

You’ve been underground with 32 co-workers for well over two months. Now that you’re on the surface and are a national hero with a world press that has seemingly unlimited interest in your personal life, where do you draw the boundaries?

Many thanks to the Trail Baboon guest bloggers for giving me a week-long blog holiday. Steve, Jacque, Anna, Barbara, Renee, Donna and tim took the lead while I spent a few days not thinking about, reading or even glancing at the blog. It was a carefree respite because I knew things were in good hands and it was a nice break from the routine. But I also missed the conversation and the many pleasures of being part of a friendly congress of baboons, so I’m equally delighted to be back. It will take me a few days to read through all your comments on the previous entries, but I aim to catch up!

While I was not paying attention, the following missive arrived from our good friend Bubby Spamden.

Hey Mr. C.,

I know we’re supposed to be concentrating on our schoolwork, but the sophomores here at Wendell Wilkie High School are really distracted by the news that Google has been secretly testing a fleet of 7 cars that can drive themselves. The cars have gone over 140 thousand accident free miles with minimal human intervention, which is a lot better than 7 high school sophomores can do.

Some adults think this is a great idea, but me and my friends, we’re kinda ticked off.

If you don’t get that, think of it this way – you’re just about old enough to get your license and your mom goes, “You know what honey? I think I’ll just quit my job and be your chauffeur. For the rest of your life. OK?”

Weird, huh? I actually know a kid whose mom said that.

Speaking for all the almost-16 year olds, we haven’t really known a world that didn’t have Google in it. And Google has kind of been a mom and dad for us, because whenever we want to know something, that’s who we ask. We figured out a long time ago that our biological mom and dad are kinda clueless about most everything.

And now mom is hanging on to the car keys? No thanks!

Some of my smarter friends also figured out that there’s nothing you can do online that isn’t remembered and noticed. Getting control of the car meant maybe we could finally go somewhere and do something where some body wouldn’t be looking over our shoulder. But now with Google behind the wheel, every trip will be part of our history of sites visited. Drat!

And what’s worse, the cars have cameras in them. Double drat!

We have to do something to stop this project! Without car-key based freedoms, my generation will have no reason to work or even to move out of the house. That means there’ll be no incentive to apply for all the non-existent jobs. And if we’re not working, who will fund the social security payments that you and all your old bloggers are counting on? Try to see it our way. This is an emergency!

Where you see a safety advance, we see the complete and total loss of any chance that we might actually have fun someday.

Anyway, I’m hoping you and your blog people can be on our side in this one. Speak out! Defend our youthful autonomy, rather than giving in to this scary auto tyranny by Google.

Your pal,
Bubby.

I told Bubby I couldn’t agree with him completely. For one thing, youthful indiscretions are overrated. And as a person who, as a 16 year old, totaled my father’s prize Corvair, I can’t argue that teenage driving skills are more reliable than a computer. Still, I don’t think the Google car project will ever be a realistic threat to Bubby’s freedom. Liability concerns will slow widespread adoption of the technology, and although it looks promising in these early stages, how many times have you started surfing on the internet with a clear destination in mind only to wind up a million miles away from where you thought you were headed? How will that tendency translate to a cross country trip, a Thanksgiving jaunt to Grandma’s house, or even a “quick” trip to the store? I’m not all that excited about climbing into my Googlemobile and clicking “I’m feeling lucky.”

Would you let a computer drive the car?