Dvorak Embraced Spillville, Iowa; Spillville, Iowa Embraced Dvorak

When I left the Czech Republic last year, I flew back to the American Midwest. Within two weeks, I needed to go to my home state of Iowa for my Uncle's funeral. My mom, knowing how blue I was to have left Prague when I loved it so, suggested we stop in Spillville, Iowa to see the Bily Clocks/Antonin Dvorak exhibit.

Haven't heard of it? I'm not surprised. Spillville, Iowa has all of 400 people.

When famous Czech composer Antonin Dvorak was in New York City composing his New World Symphony, he longed for the company of his Bohemian countrymen. Rather than going all the way back home for a dose of "Czechness," his secretary urged him to go West instead to the tiny village of Spillville, Iowa which was chock full of Czech immigrants.

The building where he and his family lived has been turned into a museum. It showcases two themes: Dvorak's summer in Spillville, and the breathtaking woodworking creations of some bachelors farmers who became famous handcarving incredible clocks. They are called Bily Clocks and they have to be seen to be believed. It's hard to conceive that the two craftsmen who created them never traveled more than 35 miles from Spillville and only went to school through 5th grade. The tour guide winds up every mechanical clock and shows you it's movements.

It's not every town of 400 people

that have an honest-to-goodness

tourist attraction like this.

If you are the slightest bit interested in woodworking,

creativity, or spirituality you should see these clocks.

The farmers viewed them as a way to glorify God.

Museum guests are not allowed to take pictures of them.

The building can't be missed.

It's on the main thoroughfare through town.

I teared up when I walked into the gift shop

and was surrounded by a whole room of Czech stuff.

Fairy tales written by the famous Czech author

Božena Némcová

I enjoyed learning about Dvorak's stay both in New York City

where he completed his New World Symphony

and in Spillville, Iowa.  

There was lots of interesting background on
American reaction to his Symphony.

Americans, including Dvorak's patroness,

were determined to develop "American music."

When Dvorak, himself an "oppressed person,"

if you want to call him that

as a Czech in the Czechlands

during the Austrian-Hungarian Empire,

suggested to Americans they had all the material

they needed for a grand American-style music

in the music of African-Americans and Native Americans.

White Americans derided his ideas

with a bemused "Imagine he said that!" attitude.

White America said it in Decorah, Iowa
where this article is from.

But they said it in New York City too.

Dvorak was ahead of his time.

His first morning in Spillville

he went down to the Turkey River

and enjoyed the birds singing

even before he talked to anyone in town.

I can imagine being in Spillville
felt very much like being in a Czech village.

Since I worshiped at St. Clement's Church in Prague,

I was delighted to discover a St. Clement's Church in Spillville.

Other signs of Czech life:

the oldest Czech school in America.

The church  and church cemetery
at St. Wenceslaus Church.

Dvorak liked to play the organ here.

A few years after the Velvet Revolution happened, the tiny village of Spillville was newly energized to put on a festival costing $60,000 celebrating their Czech heritage.  That's a lot of ambition for a tiny town of 400.
Bravo to them.  Click on this link to read about it.  Click on my title for more information about the museum.

Can Anyone Tell Me About this Beautiful Czech Pottery?

Twenty years ago, when I started corresponding with my Czech pen pals, one of them sent me a vase like the one pictured in the second picture below. I fell in love with the beautiful folk pottery! It's Czech, but I have never seen it offered for sale in Prague.

These pictures are on display at Celetna Crystal on Celetna Street. When I asked the salesperson about them she shrugged and said "too old fashioned." Say it ain't so! It's classic folk pottery. So who knows anything about these beautiful things?

Are they Moravian?

An Evening of Jazz at the Reduta

 At the Reduta Jazz Club

All of this "Obama in Prague" commotion, took me back to a wonderful memory from "Obama in Prague" weekend last year.  My President had just arrived in Prague, it was the night before his big speech and the entire city was jazzed.  What would be a better thing to do than to go hear some jazz?  Actually, that's what the last democratic American president did when he was in Prague in 1994.

A display of photos from that special night in 1994

of the "Two President's Gig"

Vaclav Havel took Bill Clinton down to Prague's most famous jazz club, the Reduta, and therein a night of magic was created.  It's gone down in history as the "Two President's Gig."  President Havel presented President Clinton with a saxophone.  In this small intimate club, so tiny it could almost be someone's rec room, Bill Clinton played "Summertime" on his new sax.  Czech musician Jan Konopásek, now living in Florida but keeping a home in Prague 1, had also created a piece of music that was a blend of the two nation's hymns.  It was played.  Our Secretary of State at the time, Madeline Albright was also there, which was fitting since she has Czech roots. This evening was beyond statecraft.  This was friendship.

 I knew President Obama wouldn't be there on the eve of his speech.  Lightening doesn't strike in the same place twice -- or at least so I'm told.  But I had a very special invitation from Czech bandleader and clarinetist Pavel Smetáček to come hear his Traditional Jazz Studio band play at the Reduta on a breathtakingly beautiful springtime evening.

 Reduta Bandstand

The evening to me was a celebration of deep roots.  Pavel Smetáček's band has been in existence for 50 years.  When you think of how fashions in music come and go, and personnel come and go, and then you add a totalitarian regime harassing musicians on top of all that -- it's hard to underestimate the accomplishment.

The crowd forming - 

music begins at 9:30 p.m.

Pavel Smetáček's band was not the only Czech jazz institution to have lasted for so long and with such a grand reputation.  The Reduta jazz club has also continuously operated as a jazz club for 50 years as well.  Sometimes I think jazz is celebrated more here in Prague than at home! What wonderful memories Pavel must have created over the years at this club.

Vojtech Hueber

Announcer for the Evening

So there was not only Pavel's 50 years of musical leadership present, and 50 years of Reduta jazz history present, there was also the incredible long-standing friendship between Pavel Smetáček and his friend Vojtech Hueber, PhD present. Spending time with them, it's obvious to see how lucky these two men are to have each other as friends.

Vojtech, associated with Czech Radio's jazz department, also has a lengthy career history in international affairs.  These men have their love of jazz to discuss and also global politics.  Pavel helped represent the Czechoslovakian government with new democratic faces after the Velvet Revolution, having served as the Ambassador to Italy in the early days of democracy.

 The dreamy Smetáček brothers.

Pavel on the left, Ivan on the right.

Wait...

this picture is better.

Pavel on the left, Ivan on the right,

and me chillin' with the dreamy Smetáček brothers!

Oh, and one other long-standing partnership was on display. Pavel's brother Ivan, was also present that evening.  Ivan played the trumpet for years and no longer plays since his embouchure has taken a well-deserved retirement. Both Pavel and Ivan carry themselves with an urbanity quite uncommon in today's world. Can we bring it back?

 I asked Pavel, "where did you learn to be so elegant?"

"From my father, Václav Smetáček; he was a symphony conductor.  He died in 1986 at the age of 80.  He was known for his handsomeness."  He wrote a piece of music for Pavel's band called "Ragtime Echo."

 I haven't met Pavel's son Stěpán, representing a third generation of musical leadership, but he has his own modern band called the New Orchestra of Dreams (Pavel plays traditional dixieland jazz although he says he's a "tolerant traditionalist!"). Dasha, Pavel's wife, is a flautist.  She played in Pavel's band for 10 years.  She now teaches and has a chamber music ensemble with flutes and cellos.

The depth of all these connections was moving!

The band began to play with a power that just blew those of us in the front row away.  Wow, I want to be like this when I'm his age.  It was so fantastic.  They started off the first set with the song Nobody's Sweetheart. and continued with:
Careless Love,
Some of These Days,
I Can't Give You Anything But Love,
and Oh, Lady Be Good.

I was touched when Vojtech introduced me to the crowd as a special guest of the band.  While many of the people were local, quite a few in the crowd were Asian tourists.  Would I be as hip to their fabulous music if I went to their countries?

The trombone player was adorable.  Anytime he did an extended solo and the crowd clapped he did this very cute "aw shucks" schtick that did not get old. He not only played the trombone, he had a trombone 'kazoo' that he would bring out for fun.

The second set, the band played:
All of Me
Pennies from Heaven
Burgundy Street Blues (arranged by George Lewis)
When You're Smiling
Strutting' With Some Barbecue

The third and final set the band played:

I've Found a New Baby
Ja-Da
C-Jam Blues
St. Louis Blues
Sweet Georgia Brown 




I especially appreciated hearing St. Louis Blues because one of the seminal jazz moments in my life was hearing Count Basie's band accompany Joe Louis on that number in Nice, France when I was 17 years old. I remember it like it was yesterday! It was yesterday, wasn't it?

Band members on stage:

Armin Reich - drums
Ondřej Cernil - bass
Antonin Bílý - piano (not pictured but jamming in full force!)
Jaroslav Zelený - trombone et al.
Vitězslav Marek - trumpet et al.
Jan Chvosta - tenor sax
Pavel Smetáček - clarinet

Pavel and Vojtech also gave me some tips on who I should listen to in European jazz. I'll keep those recommendations to myself.  I wouldn't want to say anything that harms a diplomatic legacy.   Thank you gentlemen, for an unforgettable evening of music and terrific fellowship!

You might enjoy this earlier post about Pavel's band:

I Could Have Danced All Night

Czech/American marriages

I heard a funny story from an American woman married to a Czech.  I asked her if she would recommend marriage to a Czech man.  "No actually, I recommend the other way around," she intimated with a laugh.  "Czech women are raised to do everything domestically and expect nothing from a man around the house.  He gets away with doing less than he would have to do married to an American." So when a Czech woman marries an American it's a very peaceful marriage because both people are getting more than they expected.  She continued, "but when a Czech man marries an American woman and he doesn't do anything and she expects the same sort of help an American man would give, it's not at all peaceful."

There you have it.  Choose accordingly!

Who Will Be the Czech "Jamie Oliver?"

There are two spheres of life in the Czech Republic that are wide open for the right talent to walk into and call their own - giant gaping voids that just scream "opportunity!"  The first sphere would be politics which I've written about in other posts.  The second sphere of life in the Czech Republic that is in need of new voices, new talent, & new thought is cuisine.

 

            

         

British Chef
Jamie Oliver

  

Where is the Czech "Jamie Oliver?" He's the British chef who said "we could make our national food and cuisine and what we serve our kids healthier." The Czech Republic is in bad need of this kind of culinary cultural leadership.

Food author

Michael Pollan

It's interesting to compare what needs to be fixed in American diets and what needs to be fixed in Czech diets.  My hero, author Michael Pollan, writes extensively and entertainingly that Americans eat a lot of "edible food-like substances" rather than real, actual food. He has said Americans are unconscious when they eat processed food.  It's not really "real food." It's an "edible, highly-processed food-like substance" that has been created because processed food adds more profit to ag companies than commodities.

Americans are so guilty as charged! Pollan says it would be hard to create an eating culture that resulted in more heart disease, obesity, and chronic disease than our own, but we Americans have managed to do it.  Most likely, because each one of those health problems is a profit opportunity for someone. So ag companies can make profit on creating unhealthy food and drug companies can make profit on fixing all the health problems created.  You are not a person - you are a profit delivery system for large companies in the American food landscape!

So Michael Pollan asked all of his readers ("The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food" were each chosen as among the top ten titles in the year they were written - both of them are fantastic) to send him their family "food rules" so Americans could begin to develop an eating culture that would not poison them. It has resulted in his new book "Food Rules," a collection of the rules people sent in.

The most well-known food rule people sent is this: Don't eat any food your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize.

Ewwwww.

Pork knuckle.

What a conundrum. Everything Czech people eat is food their great-grandmother would recognize! If we were doing manual labor on a farm it would be the perfect cuisine: bread and potato dumplings, deep-fried cheese, piles and piles of potatoes, loads of beer (and not light beer either), and inexpensive cuts of beef and pork (did you know pork had knuckles? Pork knuckle is a famous Czech dish). So far, the Czech people look pretty skinny.  But I was seeing the pedestrian Czechs for the most part - not the driving Czechs.  Now that Czechs are beginning to buy cars, I wonder how long they'll stay skinny.

I say the opportunity is right for an inventive Czech chef to update Czechs to the beautiful, wondrous, variety of vegetables out there beyond cabbage and potatoes.  Communism is dead! Czech people, you don't have to eat like a communist or a member of the A/H Empire anymore.  You deserve vegetables in every possible color, not just white. You deserve high-quality meat! There are more exotic things for you to discover beyond bananas!

This mythical chef could possible update gender roles a bit too.  In America, every man I know proudly kicks ass in the kitchen.  Czech men have no idea how fun it is to cook!

Travel Channel host and chef

Anthony Bourdain

Tonight, Anthony Bourdain's American travel show "No Reservations" travels to Prague to see how cuisine has evolved post-communism.  I'm so excited to see what he has to say.

Related posts:
Armchair Traveling With Tony
What Flavor Do You Associate With the Czech Republic?

What Flavor Do You Associate with the Czech Republic?

Quick.  What flavor or spice do you associate with India? The clock is ticking...oh you didn't need any extra time, did you? Most people answer "curry." What's flavor do you associate with Japan? The clock is ticking...everyone may not answer this one the same way. I would say "wasabi."

What flavor would you associate with the Czech and Slovak Republics? Before arriving in Prague, I would have drawn a blank.  Today I would say: "honey."

Do you like honey? Let me tell you about two fabulous Czech specialties that are delicious!

The first product is an alcoholic beverage.  It's mead! How can an American learning about other cultures resist a beverage with such a long and storied European history and medieval name.  It sounds like something one should be served at a Renaissance Fair along with a big fat turkey leg.  Mead is wine made out of three ingredients: honey, water, and yeast. If you want to call it by it's Czech and Slovak name, it's marketed as 'medovina.'

I discovered the joys of medovina one night when I had arrived at a friend's flat, cold and shivering, and my friend offered me a cup of warm medovina to take the chill off. I sat down with a deliciously warm, yummy glass of medovina and fell in love with the taste.

I wish I had noticed the brand name at the time (it came in a clear bottle) because ever since then, I've been tasting different brands of medovina to try and reproduce that exact memory of deliciousness. It's easy to find medovina that is sickly sweet and needs to be watered down.  This wine tasted like a gently sweet, low-viscosity form of honey. Try it. If the first brand is too sweet, give another brand a try.  Mulled mead (doesn't that sound medieval?) is available at Christmas time.  It has additional spices and fruit flavors added.

Are you more of a show-stopping dessert type? I'm not as much.  But I remember one of my fellow teacher's reaction to Medovnik, an exquisite honey cake served everywhere in Prague for dessert.  She was in utter rhapsody! She loved it so much she tried to make it at home.  "Don't bother," she reported after her attempt. "It's not for amateurs.  It's w-a-y-y-y too much work." So I guess she's back to turning heads in cafes with those moans of ecstasy as she consumes her medovnik.

How Czech Government Delighted Me As a Consumer

"Can you tell me," asked my native-Czech student shyly near the end of a lesson one day, "anything you see here that is better than in your country?"

"Can I? YES!" I answered enthusiastically. "Czech people haven't the faintest idea how FABULOUS their transportation networks are. They are simply amazing."

Hlavni Nadrazi

the Main Prague Train Station

 What I admire:

1) Czech transport makes Czechs more competitive. Here's why: In America, it is suggested that 15% of the average household budget be devoted to paying for transportation. That usually includes cars for both parents and possibly for any teenagers living at home, car insurance, gasoline, and licenses for the car and drivers. That's 15% of American salaries, which run higher than Czech salaries.

Czechs don't need to spend so much of their salaries on transportation because it's possible to survive, indeed thrive, without a car. Not only can companies locate in the Czech Republic and get high-quality, hard-working, highly educated, often multi-lingual employees, it's possible to pay them less because they don't have these household costs that exist in America.

How low are the transport costs in the Czech Republic? Envision living in a city of 1.3 million and paying a mere $300 a year to get around. And if you want to be able to travel through the entire country (similar in size to the U.S. state of South Carolina), an annual train pass is only $100 more! Can you imagine, my fellow Americans, being able to get around your entire state for only $400? As far as I can tell, Czechs spend around 8.8% of their salaries on transportation.  What a competitive advantage in the global fight for jobs!

On the Hlavni Nadrazi

train platform

where you can catch a train to Plzen

or another city or village 

The comfortable seats

on a City Elephant Train

What's missing: stress!

Czechs have the most extensive rail network density in the entire EU.  Railways were built to transport the military in the 19th century.  A CFO for a construction company pointed out to me Communist government also made it easy to create this incredible system of national and metro railways because the apparatchiks just 'appropriated' whatever property was needed from the citizenry. Property owners weren't compensated. If a government such as mine were to develop this today paying retail prices to property owners, the cost would be exorbitant.  Bummer.

Right up this Metro escalator

is one of Prague's newest malls.

Prague kids don't need their parents

to drive them there.

The kids can't get in too much trouble.

See those spiky things?

There will be no sliding down that shiny metal

all the way from the top!

2) Czech parents don't have to be chauffeurs! When children are between the ages of 10-16, American parents spend their "free" time chauffeuring them from one activity to another. Think about this, America.  Imagine your city safe enough that your 10-year-old and his friends could get on the metro and go to hockey practice without you driving them there! Yes, remarkably, Prague is that safe.  Tweens and teens travel on the metro and trams unchaperoned as they pursue their interests.  When Czech children are free to explore the city, Czech parents have a vested interest in making sure that all parts of the city are safe, not just their neighborhood. Surely, that lessens crime.

Czech students on a field trip
using the Prague metro
to get from Point A to Point B

3) Superb public transportation facilitates learning outside of a classroom. It's a giant hassle to take kids on a field trip in America.  The teacher has to coordinate a school bus, discuss it with all the other teachers, get liability release forms from each parent, etc., etc.  Plus securing that bus is all dependent on whether or not there is budget for it that year.  Is it any wonder field trips are dying out? In the Czech Republic, the teacher can just take her class on ever-present public transit that serves everyone! No need to call ahead and order a bus just for her and her kids.  Kids don't need school buses to take them to school either.  They ride the metro like everybody else.

Poetry in the Metro

4) Public transportation creates readers which is good for democracy and good for wealth creation.  One issue poor families face in America is 'a poverty of print.'  No books in the household and no billboards even in their neighborhoods (companies don't bother advertising to folks with no disposable income).  Low-income children don't start kindergarten with the pre-literacy skills developed by observing readers and reading materials on a daily basis.  A sight seen again and again on Czech transport is a variety of people greedily opening their book with such reverence it reinforces the message that reading is fun. At-risk kids in the Czech Republic have other role models beside their parents.  I've even see Czech parents use that transit time to read to their kids!

All those readers create a healthy market for print newspapers and weeklies which is great for democracy.

Good readers grow up to earn 20% more than average readers. Constant reading builds up a skill critical to wealth creation.

5) Public transportation is safer than driving. Americans curtail their activities because they fear driving when drinkers could be on the road.  I went out with full confidence on New Year' Eve in Prague because I knew I didn't have to worry about dangerous people on the road. It's a little crazy, isn't it, to deprive ourselves of activities because we fear driving?

A new, less predictable, driving danger is becoming known: texting while driving. It results in driving so distracted it is the equivalent of twice the impairment of driving while intoxicated.  Why not bring laptops and electronic devices on public transit to use that time to accomplish work undistracted rather than try to work and drive at the same time?

6) Public transportation creates a pedestrian culture that limits obesity.  I offer my own experience.  Twenty pounds lost in the Czech Republic in six months without trying! But think of the money slimmer people save the country's health care budgets with less chronic diseases caused by overeating and inactivity.

Life goes on!

Here a Czech takes home

a Christmas tree on the metro

 7) Public transportation limits human isolation. You know how people who have just broken up with someone have a grudge against the opposite gender?  It would be hard to keep that attitude alive using Czech public transit. You may not be in love, but everyone else is.  My goodness, I've never seen so much public smooching in my life! On the metro, you'll see couples in love, families moving their household furniture, students studying madly for a test, and people on their way to a potluck with a dish balanced on their lap.  I think it's healthy and gets people outside of their own head to see the wonderful parade of humanity that happens on the metro.  It's a conversational banquet too.  I can't count the number of interesting five-minute conversations I had with perfect strangers on the metro!

The futuristic feel

of the Prague Metro

is part of the fun

8) The Czech Republic is already armed with an infrastructure that limits global warming. Every family that uses public transit saves 20 lbs. of carbon emissions annually from entering the atmosphere. Czech people already have it built!

9) Public transit keeps the air cleaner. - the street my language school was on was like a valley of trapped car exhaust.  I'm sure vehicle traffic has made the air in Prague less healthy for the people who live there.

10)Public transit creates a very livable city. In a city of 1.3 million people, I could go home for lunch!  That's what delights me the most.  The incredible, extensive transport network allowed me to move into Prague without a car and get about the city without any anxiety.  An English teacher in Prague gets to know how to use the metro, trams, and buses in combination with each other so extensively it would be normal to get from one side of Prague to another in 20 minutes.  If I was going someplace new I just used a first-class website to help plan the trip.  All included in my $22 a month transit pass.

An elevated Metro tube

headed into Luziny Metro stop

in Prague

The Challenge for Czechs

Czech families with the funds available are purchasing cars.  Because that strata, articulate in their demands, tends to get listened to in a democracy, there's a danger that public transit budgets will begin to favor highways more than public transit.  In America, 80% of the money goes for highways and 20% for transit. Our transit looks like it too. It's not world-class.  How will the Czech Republic maintain it's fabulously competitive transit system if the loudest citizens value something else?  Are you rich enough as a country to afford both? We aren't - or at least haven't prioritized it that way. What would Prague and other cities be like to live in if the car became the dominant vehicle of choice? Would you have additional costs to your society if obesity was higher, carbon emissions, pollution, and foreign oil imports were higher, stress was higher, human isolation was higher, educational costs were higher, and household expenses were higher?

Czechs, do you understand what an infrastructure gem this is? Have you purchased a car? What do you think will be favored more in the next twenty years? Vehicle traffic or transit traffic?

Americans, does this appeal to you at all? Is there any American area that comes close to this level of transit service?  What kind of public transit do you wish you had where you live (I would love high-speed rail from Madison, WI to Milwaukee and Chicago, Illinois. Rockford, Illinois is a city the size of Plzen that would explode if it had any kind of rail service to Chicago, 90 miles away.


You can also read my previous post about what I valued about the United States Government:

The United States Government Saved My Life

The United States Government Saved My Life

I moved to Prague in November of 2008. It was the day after the Presidential election so I left full of hope and excitement for my country's future. The preceding month, however, with the credit crisis and the bank bailouts pretty much drove American belief in the fairness of our system out the window. It would have been so, so easy to give up in cynicism. I was grateful to be in Prague where I would be avoiding the continual depressing drumbeat of economic calamity in American news.

When I came to Prague, I discovered Czechs had their own cynicism about democratic politics. I'm not talking about before 1989, but after. Immediately after the Velvet Revolution, Czechs felt all of the assets of the country were stripped away in a big "grab" by politicians and carpetbaggers.

I don't want to be cynical. It's not my nature and cynicism never advanced the cause of humanity. So as I made my transition to living in a new country, I vowed to celebrate one wonderful thing about my government and the Czech government so that I could keep cynicism at bay. In my next post, I'll talk about one wonderful thing I admire about Czech government, even though there are actually many things (just as there are for America). Today, I'd like to celebrate my own government's actions. It actually ended up saving my life.

A typical sign
that conveys how socially unacceptable
smoking is in America.

I am grateful to the United States government for providing leadership in my country on the elimination of smoking as a socially acceptable practice. This wasn't a grass-roots movement from the people pushing up but a top-down campaign from the Surgeon General of the United States (our top public health official) to the people.

In 1964, the Surgeon General declared that "smoking causes cancer." That took real courage to say back then because 46% of American smoked. They smoked in cars, elevators, planes, offices, and their homes. The 1964 report was issued on a Saturday, so great were the worries about what it would do to the American stock market.

The news that smoking causes cancer finally sank into my brain in 1991 when I was 31 years old. Up until that point, I smoked more than I care to admit (okay, I'll admit it: 3-4 packs a day).

When I came to Prague, I had never seen so many smokers! Not even when I was 17 years old and thought smoking was cool. Just walking down one of Prague's very lovely streets, one has to be careful not to get a cigarette burn in one's coat because people are actively walking and smoking at the same time! I once talked to a young Czech college student who was smoking and he was astonished by the idea that anyone would want to quit. "It relaxes me." I don't even think he knew it could kill him. And it's not just Czech young people who smoke.

Most educated people in the USA have educated themselves about the danger.  In America, the majority of smokers left have less than a high school education. I've entered salons frequented by Prague intelligentsia where nearly 100% of the people had a PhD. But they are uneducated about the dangers of tobacco. The air was so thick with smoke you could see it move!

I  was mystified by how unlikely it would be that my country led on this and the Czech Republic lagged on this. After all, in a socialist health care system, wouldn't the government want to eliminate preventable chronic disease because it would eliminate expense? Wouldn't Czech people resent their neighbor's smoking if that drove up national health care costs and their taxes? Isn't it in a socialist government's fiscal interest to change this smoking culture?

Maybe the taxes raised on cigarettes more than cover the cost of the increased disease and people who smoke are used for financing public budgets. I don't know. I will occasionally razz, with a joking smile, my smoking friends who are huddled outside for warmth where they've been banished nationwide in America: "hey taxpayer, thanks for paying more than your fair share through your smoking. You make it easier on the rest of us. But you don't have to kill yourself in the process - why not just mail in the money if you're so insistent on paying these extra taxes?" One of my young coworker has taken to calling his smoking breaks "paying everybody's taxes."

Why did my country lead on curtailing smoking culture when we had a giant tobacco industry that was hugely powerful, created tons of jobs, and lots of export income? The government continually, over and over again, did the right thing despite all that. We have all kinds of industries back home that sway the government from doing the exact thing in the best interest of the public as a whole. I would love to understand why the American government was so terrific on this issue when the government didn't even bear the health care costs of increased smoking, insurance companies did. What do you think, Americans? How could this sort of extraordinary leadership on an issue be reproduced? We sure could use an awful lot more of it.

I am so grateful to the Surgeon Generals of the United States for saving my life. Thank you for continually reminding the public that we were killing ourselves. And since all movements have a drum leader, I would like to take a moment to honor the individual human beings who have led this movement in my country. Thank you!

American Surgeon Generals from that period onward:

Leroy Edgar Burney (first federal official to state that smoking causes lung cancer)
Luther L. Terry (commissioned landmark 1964 report on smoking)
William H. Stewart
Jesse L. Steinfeld
Julius B. Richmond
C. Everett Koop (led a campaign to create a smoke-free society by 2000)
Antonio Novello
M. Jocelyn Elders
David Satcher
Richard H. Carmona
Regina M. Benjamin

See, it's not so hard to keep cynicism at bay! Next post I will talk about what I most admire about the Czech government:

How Czech Government Delighted Me As a Consumer

Discovering a Prejudice Against Germans I didn't even know I had

The Czechs had a pretty horrific 20th century. First, it was the Austrian-Hungarian empire, then the Nazis came, and the Soviets. You'd think Czechs would harbor a grudge. Not so. While every Czech I met knew their history, Czechs seem not to devote a whit of space in their heads to grudges against Germans or Russians.

Conventional wisdom says the opposite of love is not hatred but apathy; that would describe the Czech attitude toward Russians. The Russians left only 20 years ago but they're just never talked about much. Sometimes it seems the Ruskies were never there, and evidence of their being there can only be found in traces, such as the Czech habit of not smiling on the subway for fear of giving your neighbors something to report.

I was surprised though to discover Czech open hearts toward German people. But "how can you trust them?" I'd ask. "Don't you worry the same thing could happen again, where Germany tries to take over all of Europe and make everyone miserable and/or dead?" "Nah," my Czech friends and students would say. "They're not like that."

I always wondered how the Czechs could say that with such confidence. How could they be so sure? Didn't my country have to come over to Europe twice and bail everyone out because of how the Germans behaved? If it happened not just once, but twice in the last 100 years, didn't that mean that deep in the heart of every German there was a blustering Imperialistic Nazi hibernating inside? Over and over again, I heard Czechs negate that thought.

It wasn't just Czechs who had an open mind and heart. While I was living in Prague, I entertained some friends from Israel. The lady discussed making her first visit to Germany to make her peace with the German people. She was content with moving on. What? A Jewish person has such incredible capacity to forgive and trust? Incredible!

I never understood what people were seeing and feeling about Germans that I wasn't until I went to hear Andrew Bacevich, an American professor of international relations at Boston University and the author of "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism" speak at the Wisconsin Book Festival. He and two other learned professors were describing how countries that pursue empire are doing so rather than look inward and reforming themselves. I don't know if he meant this, but I got the idea while listening to his talk that pursuing empire is a country's version of addiction, a non-conscious expression of pain and harm toward other populations so as not to feel or reform ourselves.

After the talk, I asked all three professors separately, "Okay, if the way we Americans are living now is all about Empire building, who then offers us the model of how we are to live?" Each professor commented on what an interesting question that was and that no one had every asked it (yea me!). Andrew Bacevich then answered without hesitation that "the Germans are our example. They have no interest in empire building whatsoever."

Bacevich made me realize I was operating on 65-year-old information. It wasn't fair to judge the Germans of today against the Germans of yesterday. I needed to update my vision of them as a people and open my heart as countless Europeans and my Jewish friends had already done.

When I went to Berlin, all those monuments documented a dark past from which the nation was recovering. Building monuments and talking about the crimes that had been committed in their name is an acceptance of responsibility. They are choosing to deny denial. One of my friends from Italy told me, "if only my country had learned as much from its mistakes as the Germans have."

It made me think. Is my country accepting responsibility for the things that we've done wrong? Are we ready to discuss them out-loud? Are we able to discuss our past mistakes? One of my U.S. Senators told me if Americans thought the Abu Ghraib photos were bad, the ones not shared in public were much, much worse. If we don't prosecute the alleged abuses and torture done in our name, doesn't that make every American responsible for them? If we choose not to talk about them or acknowledge them, it means we approve, cause we'd rather live in denial. I don't want to live in denial.

I also don't want to operate on 65-year-old information. Heck, if people didn't update their visions of each other, we'd all be worrying about Scandinavians looting and pillaging ala the Vikings!

Look at Iranian leadership. They are operating on a paranoia developed from 55-year-old information when the CIA overthrew their leader and they've been overreacting ever since.

I vow to open my heart to German people and look at them as people completely and wholly new to me. I know nothing about them and my mind is now an open slate.

You may be interested in these other posts:

Understanding Iran: The Power of One Graphic Novel called Persepolis 

Recommended Reading for Thoughtful Americans: "The Limits of Power" by Andrew J. Bacevich

American Mistletoe Growers are Leaving Money on the Table

Glorious Czech mistletoe
on display

One of the Czech Christmas traditions I fell in love with was the way Czechs hang their version of mistletoe. "What do you mean 'their version?'" you might ask. Well, the Czechs have very different mistletoe than Americans. I don't know how that's possible. A plant should be similar everywhere, right?

Mistletoe for sale
in the open air Christmas markets.

You can buy it in it's natural state
or flocked with silver or gold.

American mistletoe, which I have probably purchased once in my life, is, in a word, wimpy. It comes prepackaged in plastic and forms a forgetable round ball about the size of your fist. Most mistletoe is usually purchased for the giggles when it is strategically hung somewhere with young people such as a sorority. It is not a must-buy Christmas tradition for every household and business in the United States. Quick, American readers, tell me exactly where you saw mistletoe for sale in your community. I bet you didn't run across it without asking for it. In the Czech Republic, it's sold everywhere and it's displayed everywhere.

Mistletoe is purchased by all ages.

So I have an idea for American mistletoe growers. You are welcome to take it. I have no intention of using it. I do not aspire to be the American mistletoe maven. All I ask is, if you decide to implement this idea, do something nice for Czech people like start a scholarship fund for Czech students to come to America and study. Heck, maybe this isn't even an idea for Americans, but for Czech businesspeople looking to export.

Fresh mistletoe waiting to be cut
on the roof of a Christmas market booth.

Someone needs to sell this kind of mistletoe in America. I saw it displayed all over Prague in homes and businesses alike, usually hung on the wall with a big fat red ribbon. It was so beautiful. And I could tell, that for Czechs, there was an emotional response and a tradition far beyond mere giggles. This represents beauty, home, tradition. I often saw it displayed in places where Americans would display a traditional wreath. How much money could be made if mistletoe growers captures just 20% of the wreath space in America and supplanted it with mistletoe? Wreaths are nice. Yawn. But I bet America would respond to someone shaking it up a little.

I'm here to serve. Merry Christmas.