Sliding Scales

Overlooking the sins of your own tribe because the other tribe is so very sinful is how Israeli/Palestinian-style uber-stalemates foment.

Right and wrong are not sliding scales. The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions, but its exit ramps get blocked with “But they’re so much worse!!”


I watched professional tennis as a kid. Once, I saw an umpire call a shot "out of bounds" though the opposing player (and viewing audience at home) clearly knew it was inside the line. The camera zoomed in on the player’s face, which betrayed the slightest pinch of tightly constrained discomfort. Conflicting forces, impulses, and rationales were at play, and while the ones favoring justice, fair play, and sportsmanship were stifled, at least it wasn't entirely comfortable for him.

I realized that I'd spotted a saving grace. Though I very much wanted to see the player explode with indigantion over the bad call - the same sort of angry response he'd have offered if a bad call went against him - at least I could spot his stomach lining eroding a little; his hair greying a little; his cells anti-oxidizing a little; and his mortal soul dessicating a little. There were at least some subtle consequences (see Brazilian Bus Driver Syndrome).

My two reactions: 1. I stopped watching professional tennis, and 2. I realized how hopefully close humanity was to a moral threshold. Yeah, we often chose to do the bad thing, but our saving grace was our tinge of teetery ambivalence.

That was back in the 1970's. Since then, we've clenched back from that ambivalence and toward greater comfort with our bad behavior and that of our cohorts (while becoming exquisitely fine-tuned to bad behavior by The Other; we’re paragons in judgement and pragmatists in action). But I maintain hope. The crossover point was visible in my short lifetime, so it's not inaccessible.

We can go first! We can risk nonconformity by leading, rather than following, the crowd! By being less extreme and rigid and awful. By insisting on smart calls and level standards. By standing for justice, fair play, and sportsmanship for everyone, even our despised opponents.

Or...we can keep blocking the exits from the highway to hell (hey, at least our intentions are super good, right?).

Greetings from sunny Portugal.

I've Cruelly Deprived You of Food Porn

I've been posting an ongoing series on Facebook: photo essays of nothing-special, non-aspirational neighborhood meals in Setúbal, Portugal - with a strong emphasis on baked apples. It's pretty much "What Jim Had For Lunch Last Week", with wry running commentary. Catch up via links below.

October 18, 2025
October 25, 2025
November 3, 2025
November 12, 2025
November 13, 2025
December 1, 2025

Why am I posting this stuff there and not here? To explain, I need to tell a story of heights I cannot scale.

In a previous century, I wrote (as part of a weekly diary for Slate) about the closing week of wonderful Bo restaurant, a labor-of-love operated single-handedly by a feisty super-talented Korean woman named Maria who'd worked in fancy restaurants as a pastry chef but wanted to serve traditional Korean food in a cozy Queens storefront. She was the darling of food critics and of Chowhound's early years, but hardly anyone showed up.

I've experienced the death throes of thousands of restaurants. Normally, they turn glum and hapless. You'd think they'd be glad to see a customer, but, as you enter the dining room, you can feel the mental calculation: "This makes no real difference." Food goes downhill and servers bare their fangs. You lose your enthusiasm and stop coming as the circle turns vicious.

Maria, however, ran through the tape. The more hopeless it got, the better she cooked, and her gratitude to her small cadre of loyal customers only increased. As recounted in the link above, she walked me out to my car after my final meal on her final night, consoling me in my disconsolation. That's strength.


This Slog has been an abject failure, for a variety of reasons I've offered over the years. I have a long acquaintanceship with rejection (Chowhound's brief acclaim was a fluke), so I'm no stranger to the impulse to keep improving in the face of shunning (even when it's counterproductive because the problem all along was that you were too far ahead). I once explained the mindset:

However good you are now, get way way better, and then, when you're certain you're good enough, get way way better still. And then get better. Finally, realize you absolutely suck and triple it.

A vicious circle of rejection can thus provoke a virtuous circle of improvement. In the spirit of The Red Shoes, geometric progression can hoist things so far up the curve of declining results that a dimwitted trombonist/food critic might somehow (I can't take credit because it was mostly epiphany) conjure up fresh and credible explanations for most of the long-standing mysteries (human happiness, theology, cosmology, art, creativity, messiahs, god, autism, addiction, depression (here and here) spirituality, self-destructiveness, art, etc).

So that part was good, I guess, but, ultimately I've proven to lack Maria's strength of character. I haven't run through the tape; haven't shown diehards proper gratitude. I know many of you are here for the sporadic food content, but I've been posting it to Facebook without bothering to copy it over here for the tiny clique of readers who, in many cases, have followed me for years. I am the bitter idiot waiter who scowls at the good guys because there aren't enough of them. I am, alas, no Maria.


I have, though, at least turned out to be a Walter, despite lack of appreciation for the bubblegum (come to think of it, most of the kids just grabbed the gum and sullenly walked back to their seats, oblivious to the gesture and effort from this sweet old guy).