Gullible Travels

Tawnic, Tonic, Both, Bolth, Cain't, Can't, Cant

2008-01-24T09:52:00.000-05:00

Are words spoken in a different accent different words than than if they were said in the speaker's natural accent? I grew up in New Hampshire, went to school in North Carolina and live in DC and during my life I have studied four different languages. Between all the moves and the non-English sounds I learned, my accent became a hodgepodge. The only word that really brings out the New England in my voice is "Tonic," which I say naturally as if I just brushed my teeth in the Boston Hahba. Most folks who interact with me probably would not even notice it because that is how I speak all the time and because it is fairly subtle. Even if they did notice, the hearer would likely not understand anything different because that way of saying "o" is not surprising to hear from someone without a single strong regional accent in a major East Coast city.

Less subtly, I say something that sounds like "bolth" when I am saying "both." I have no idea where this mangling came from; only a handful of people I have met say it similarly and there does not seem to be a common, linguistic tie among us. Even though it sounds strange even to people who have known me for quite a while, it does not alter or obscure my meaning at all. "I would like bolth the fish AND the chicken" causes no confusion in a restaurant. Not only does it not cause confusion but it is understood to be the same word because it functions the same way. At most, it may sound like I have a speech impediment or have been drinking.

On the other hand, I pronounce "can't" in the most straightforward American way imaginable. You would never even think to note the way I said it if this were a spoken conversation because it is said the way an educated, white, American male with no discernible regional accent would say it. If, however, I took one of the more extreme pronunciations that I heard during my time in the North Carolina, "cain't," and used that in place of "can't" during a normal conversation, it would be a meaningful decision to use that pronunciation. It would effect what I was understood to be meaning because that decision is effectively a word choice. Were I to say "cannot," my speech would sound more formal and would also impact the understanding of the listener but to a lesser extent than would feigning an accent that was not in any way my own.

The greater question is whether this is a phenomenon more like yelling or more like word choice. If it is more like yelling, that is, an outside-of-language cue that impacts oral communication, then the question is much less interesting. The understanding of what you say is changed when you yell, as opposed to purring it, to the listener. Though your method of delivery changes what a listener understands, that vehicle (yelling, signing, morse code) is not a part of language. (Yes, I know that is a gigantic claim I am making but this is a blog. Go write a philosophy thesis if you care so much.) If, however, it is like a word choice, then it is much more interesting because that leads to the idea that "can't" and "cain't" are two different words whose meaning is dependent on the accent of the person saying them. Relatedly, the back-woodsinnest, Yadkinville, NC-living, no-school-going survivalist would convey a different meaning if he were to say "can't" in the more common American dialect when he said "I can't get the meat done rayeght" than were he to use his more natural "cain't."

Finally, there is a word "cant' that sounds exactly like "can't" when I say it. Having never heard someone from Yadkinville say "cant," I am very interested in whether or not the two words come out the same from their mouths as well. Cant and can't are clearly different words, in spite of their identical pronunciations because the listener understands them differently and they are different parts of speech. Choosing a pronunciation other than our natural one to say a particular word in a sentence also leads to a difference in understanding on the part of the listener and so those changed words can be considered to be different words than if they were pronounced as the speaker would without affectation.

A quick, non-demonstrative but related story will serve to wrap this up. There was a visiting professor at my current school, we will call her Scadifi for sake of anonymity, who taught my section's property class. She was a young teacher who was quite smart but had several personality quirks that rendered her an ineffective teacher here. Half of the class was most bothered by her need to demonstrate her credentials, as though she was not herself convinced that she belonged in front of 125 students. The more problematic one in my estimation was that once or twice per run-on sentence [glass houses and stones, sure], she would produce a word in a vaguely British accent. Each time, it was jarring because her natural voice was the educated, Atlantic Coast mixture that most college-educated East Coasters are used to. The problem was that these accented words did not seem to serve a purpose, in fact, she claimed to be unaware that she was doing it. There was no rhyme or reason to the changed accent at all, no common sounds, parts of speech or position in the sentence. They did not impact the meaning of what she said because she did it so consistently and at the same time, without any order or logic. However, they did add to the atmosphere that she was trying too hard to seem impressive.

Eyes on the ball.

2008-01-23T16:29:00.000-05:00

If you are not already doing so, it is time for you to start reading Glenn Greenwald. He writes trenchant and timely pieces about issues that I am always just about to step up and write about. Unfortunately, he seems to miss one important objection per post that someone not of his viewpoint would raise but it is really worthwhile to read his arguments as a starting-off point for discussion. The particular piece that got me writing this is his take on the FISA imbroglio up in the Congress right now.

I do not think that I have much to add beyond what Greenwald is putting out there (there are at least 3 pieces on the subject up) but it is important to America that industries not be granted immunity to suits against them for actions they took following orders from the president to break the law. Our society does not function that way and there are few opportunities to stand up and make that clear. This is one of them so please lobby your Congress-people not to let our country slide a bit further towards authoritarianism and a surveillance-state. The proper solution to this is to allow the telecommunications companies who provided private customer data to the government is to allow those companies to make the case that it was necessary or legal. The answer is not to grant them retroactive immunity to law suits.

Pakistan III

2007-11-26T03:44:00.000-05:00

Some folks have been making the easy logical mistake of thinking that because there is a) instability in Pakistan and b) a bunch of Taliban and al Qaeda taking refuge in the north of that country that the influx of the latter have some causality towards the former. This is so barely accurate that I hesitate to even acknowledge it due to the greater damage done by the misconception. For the ongoing revolt in Swat, the influx is certainly not helping and it causes a distraction and disincentive to military action in the area.

The broader, more seriously problematic instability is a function of the misrule of Musharraf, the peculiarities of Pakistani politics and the realities of trying to govern a country with vast wealth stratification, cultural divides and reverberating historical troubles. It does not, however, have to do with some gun toting beardies from Afghanistan piling over the border. For my take on the likelihood of "Islamist" takeover in Pakistan, see the Pakistan II post.

If it were not for the misery and injustice involved in jailing of activists, journalists, judges and lawyers and the pathetic excuse that the martial law was in reaction to Islamist threats, I would still be behind Musharraf 100%. His influence had been positive and apart from his myopic views of the problems of Pakistan, he was governing in a way that lines up well with what Pakistan needs. It seems unlikely that electoral politics or the chaos of a coup would bring as suitable a leader but the results of martial law are completely unacceptable. This puts me in the awkward position of at once demanding an end to martial law, release of the captives and reinstatement of the judiciary as well as not really advocating a change in the power structure until a more suitable method for grooming political leaders is in place.

Smoke

2007-11-26T02:32:00.000-05:00

Staying up way past when I need to sleep to be less sick in the morning and ready to try to get fit at the gym, I tuned in to a show about Hip Hop Theater. It was very interesting but sort of a mess as a whole, as these things tend to be, because the various parties involved did not have a consistent idea of what the problem was or what the dialogue around the problem should be. Some people were mad at Capitalism, some people were mad at those co-opting hip-hop's inherent political critique and others were mad that white people controlled the means of distribution. Now, the real revolutionary says that those are all the same parcel of The Real Problem but that does not help much with solution or dialogue.

What really hit home, though, is that I would be defensive about the role and blame assigned to white people by the panelists. I am not a programming director for Clear Channel, I think that they do a lot of harm to the world. I am also not a force for gentrification in my "transitional" neighborhood, though I am an interloper. In fact, I am generally sympathetic to the remarks that the panelists were making, if I think about them as intellectual ideas, so why the defensiveness? Part is obviously insecurity and my natural combativeness. Primarily, though, it is easy for me to forget about racial problems as a white person and really easy to not see them as greater than individual-to-individual affairs.

Everytime that I remember this simple truth, I run a thought experiment. Usually it is not deliberately, but I am dumb to the degree that I accidentally rediscover this simple truth about once every two weeks, starting from scratch each time. Slavery was only four generations ago. Jim Crow was one, two or none, depending on how old you are. Apartheid South Africa was almost certainly in your lifetime if you are reading this. That means that stories of being enslaved are just as present in the lives of people today as the stories I hear of family dairy farms, portraits on the stairs and antiques in the house. Memories of Jim Crow, lynchings and state force against demonstrators for an end to segregation are more recent than my grandmother's tales of washing clothes by hand and dusting to get a nickel and a dime for both movies and a candy bar on Saturday afternoon. Just as recent as my dad's stories about tormenting his frat brothers' oppugnants or my uncle getting even with the boy who made fun of his crutches by beating his tormentor with them. While you have been around to watch television, President Reagan vetoed a bill imposing sanctions on South Africa for perpetuating the Apartheid system. That same president pushed to reinstate the tax exempt status of private schools that discriminated based on race.

Our social contract requires a great deal of trust for our society to function effectively. We all sacrifice some liberty, some privilege in order that all may enjoy greater security, happiness and, in the end, freedom. Even if you think that racism is done and gone from our society, white people have been abusing that social contract to the detriment of whatever groups were not considered white up until, at the very least, the late 1980's. It is irresponsible and unduly idealistic to imagine that when it becomes shameful to say that black people are dumber than white people, and the state no longer condones open discrimination, the air is cleared and we all get a fresh start. That trust needs to be earned and the social bonds of our Grand Experiment need to be reforged in a just way if we expect the system to work properly.

Ben Folds Five are singing about a relationship here but the message resonates: "Those who say the past is not dead, well, stop and smell the smoke. You keep saying the past is not dead, well stop and smell the smoke." Even when racial prejudice disappears, the stink will not wash out without deliberate effort.

EDIT: I left out the most important part, the bit tying the beginning to the latter half. In instances like this in which one is listening to someone else share feelings they cannot fully comprehend, it is important to be conscious in listening constructively and openly rather than defensively or in a critiquing manner. Sharing your own view point and justifying defensiveness is rarely productive, particularly initially.

Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T16:51:00.001-05:00

It is nice to know that at the end of the day, there is a lot more to this world than what man creates.
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2007/11/20/1110273-hailstorm-sets-off-bomblets-in-lebanon

The story describes hailstorms in Lebanon that are essentially mine-sweeping the unexploded cluster bombs that Israel dropped there that would otherwise lie dormant and potentially injure people when they were stepped on. Cluster bombs, like mines, are indiscriminate killers, frequently staying in the ground for years and injuring non-combatants long after the cessation of hostilities. This is borderline illegal under current international law and their use in any case other than absolute necessity should be objectionable to any civilized society.

It reminds me of a story that Kurt Vonnegut tells in Slaughterhouse Five about man, war and nature. Another world is possible, Happy Thanksgiving:

"Billy Pilgrim padded downstairs on his blue and ivory feet. He went into the kitchen, where the moonlight called his attention to a half bottle of champagne on the kitchen table, all that was left from the reception in the tent. Somebody had stoppered it again. "Drink me," it seemed to say.
So Billy uncorked it with his thumbs. It didn't make a pop. The champagne was dead. So it goes.

Billy looked at the clock on the gas stove. He had an hour to kill before the saucer came. He went into the living room, swinging the bottle like a dinner bell, turned on the television. He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this :

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed."

Quoted from: http://leonardo.spidernet.net/Artus/2386/slaughter5.htm

Pakistan II

2007-11-09T18:20:00.000-05:00

A quick bit on the not-Musharraf political look on Pakistan. It is often said but more frequently forgotten that the so-called Islamist parties in Pakistan have never managed more than a very meager poll showing. The emergency rule should not be excused as a move to prevent the beardies from taking over with their ninja turtles behind them. The folks being detained are affiliated with the legal system or are political opponents of Musharraf.

On the other hand, something similar could be said about pre-Revolution Iran. Despite the importance of Qom to Muslim scholarship and power, Iran did not have a history of political control by religious [I am loathe to use the word] extremists. However, when the people began to move against the Shah, the more powerful Communists made common cause with the Muslims seeking Islamic rule in overthrowing what was unquestionably a horrible leader. It was only after the Revolution began to get traction that the Islamic side began to gain power and until near the end, it was not certain that the Revolution would not be written into history as a victory over the capital class by the working class.

For Pakistan, there are major differences, despite the similar beginning of a loud but politically fringe religious group. First, there is no major, semi-mainstream secular group with which they can partner as they could with the Communists in Iran. Second, the level of oppression and polarization under the Shah makes Musharraf look like a plumper Mr. Rogers. Third, and most important, the "Islamists," as they are called here, are much less a monolithic group than they were in Iran. If you ask the average, high awareness American where the Pakistani "Islamists" come from, they will say Saudi madrasseh. Leaving aside the mixed bag that is the Arab-financed religious education in South Asia, a lot of people who that American would label "Islamist" want nothing at all to do with the Saudis, their madrasseh, or the ideology related to them. These just make for a good and notable target because they are an out-group among an out-group in Pakistan.

My last point about Pakistan relates more closely with my earlier post. The most frustrating aspect to the whole business of the emergency rule (apart from the human rights of the people beaten and detained) is that while the actions are despicable, there is no one else to take over and that is Musharraf's fault. He cannot pass the buck after having ruled alone for a decade. The opposition is the same as it was when he came to power and they are still unacceptable. By building oppositional political structures, Musharraf would have faced criticism just as he did by allowing freedom of the press. However, it would have been a greater threat to his power as it could not be shut down on a whim as he has shown the Pakistani media still can. The benefit to having an oppositional political system, however, only shows up after he has gone, just as the benefits to a stable, powerful, multinational system of global justice only shows up for America after we are done being hegemonic.

The only way for real improvement now is for someone who is not interested in power for themselves to make tremendously personally risky moves to take over Pakistan by a transparent and optimistic process. This, in face of the great power of Musharraf and Bhutto and the potentially violent demands of the minority who want greater Islamic control of the state. After coming to power, he or she must continue Musharraf's work while pushing the country towards a sustainable system of governance, including rigorous critiques from opponents who, by the unrest fomented by their criticisms, will not allow him or her to finish the job they start. In other words, following the emergency rule, Pakistan needs to find a rainbow-colored, lucky four-leaf clover in the shape of a horseshoe with a big pot of gold beneath it. Also, they need Musharraf, Bhutto and Sharif to retire with their fortunes and leave Pakistan the hell alone.

Pakistan

2007-11-09T17:56:00.000-05:00

If you are interested in the law and/or are concerned about Pakistan, you must have some opinion about the last few days. While I can see why the "Emergency Rule is the only way to save the country" people think the way that they do, that idea suffers from a cynicism and shortsightedness that leads to many of the regretful, pessimistic moves any society makes in a time of great stress.

When Musharraf first came to power, he deposed the corrupt Nawaz Sharif (who had earlier defeated the very corrupt Bhutto administration in an election) and made the central point of his exercise the elimination of corruption. Unfortunately, his self-confidence over-ripened to the point where he now sees himself as Pakistan's only hope for improving out of its corrupt governmental tradition. In some ways, there is truth in that idea. The only real options for replacing him are two proven-corrupt leaders. However, in his desperate power grab, he is damning himself to a continuation of that corrupt tradition, even if he has not got his own "Mr. 10%" style sobriquet.

The situation strikes me as similar to the one in which the USA finds itself. Currently, we are the global hegemon who has been in power for around sixty years (give or take) and have been essentially unchallenged for almost twenty. America is, in my opinion, a better ruler for the world than China or India or the USSR would have been. However, rather than using our position to set up a world order under which we could all comfortably live even after America is no longer hegemonic, the USA has taken the shortsighted and cynical tack of doing everything possible and necessary to maintain that control. With the extent (and thus limits) of our power shown in Iraq, we are no longer the inestimatably mighty force in the world that we were and we have lost the moral ground on issues like torture, respect for democracy and human rights. As American power ebbs, the global situation is better than it was prior to our country's ascendency but much poorer than it could be had America directed its energy at an equitable, fair, safe and healthy system under which the world could operate after America was no longer directly policing the world.

Similarly, Musharraf has done very serious work in cutting back the corruption in Pakistan. The national highway police and road system, for example, are fit to be proud of now. However, without having done any work to engineer a political society based in law and systems rather than personality and influence, he has failed to provide for his country's success following is inexorably limited rule. That is the real tragedy of the emergency rule: there is no improving from here. He has sullied himself with this business to the point that he cannot be an effective anti-corruption worker any longer.

Choices

2007-11-05T16:17:00.000-05:00

A lot of intelligent people misuse the word "ambivalence" to mean something like "no strong preference between choices." However, ambi- and -valence refer to two possibilities that both have compelling reasons to choose one over the other. In the current world we have more resources and much less existential impact from each and every choice we make in comparison to colonial or antebellum America. Even into the early part of last century, prior to the New Deal, individuals had more limits on the choices that they made and much deeper consequences on those choices they did have. Today, the concept of having two choices about which the chooser has no strong reason to pick one or the other and no real compulsion to make the choice at all is probably much useful. I wish there were a single term like "ambivalent" to use for that situation. The closest I have come is nonplussed but that refers to the emotional state of the chooser, not to their mind of the choice.

Go Team America

2007-11-02T16:33:00.000-04:00

The American system has been stressed in the last six years. From outside attacks, inside hysteria, high-level obfuscation and bullying, and low-level panic, the country has never been so superficially perturbed and concurrently stable and calm. While it is fair to decry the perversions of American traditions (liberty, due process, openness, etc.), what we have seen in this administration ought to give heart to all those with an interest in the success of the American project.

For example, in the UK, the case of Lofti Raissi - an Algerian national detained at the request of the US on suspicion of involvement in training the September 11 pilots - resulted in his release from high security detention after five months, after the US authorities consistently failed to provide evidence to justify his extradition. This case, like other that have arisen elsewhere, highlights concerns as to how it would have unfolded had extradition been requested after the entry into force of the new US-UK extradition treaty removing the evidentiary requirement, and the potential impact on similar cases in the future. The prospect of Raissi having been extradited despite the lack of evidence against him, and ranking among the many detained without trial by the US, underscores the importance of safeguarding judicial protections at the extradition stage.

This is from page 135 of The War on Terror and the Framework of International Law by Helen Duffy. While the idea that other states have to fear extraditing people to our country for fear of unfair trials (rather than the traditional excuse of facing the death penalty) cannot be comforting to Americans, we should take heart that in spite of this, our system is holding together. Even if you think that our conduct of the WAR ON TERROR is against all the founding principals of our country, the country still stands and the system that allowed these changes to happen can just as easily swing the country back to strict respect for human dignity, rights and life. Unless you think that the extra-judicial treatment of detainees is itself the complete failure of the American experiment, we are still progressing and this is something to be weathered like the Teapot Dome Scandal or the Saturday Night Massacre.

Having our country's surface disrupted while the water below is calm is preferable to a system in which the army refuses the command of the President when it disagrees with his political choices or one in which the US Attorneys strike when their work is being manipulated. CIA agents were torturing suspects, refused to continue when it seemed that their action was against the law and then resumed the program under the aegis of enhanced interrogations when those were given a legal foundation in the Office of Legal Counsel. We still have a government of laws, not of men. This leads us to let our mistakes go longer than they would with a hero to correct them, but it also gives us protection from the worst of chaos. The only way for the great experiment to truly fail would be for the citizens to demand a government of men in lieu of the law. This is what the David Addington wing of the executive branch seems to desire but the 2006 elections and Bush's poll numbers say that the tide is sweeping back out.

Quick Domestic Politics Post

2007-10-31T16:00:00.000-04:00

While the Republican race is a lot more interesting in general, I have been paying less attention to their debates and strategies because apart from not-Giuliani, those candidates will be generally of the same strength and effectiveness as both a candidate and (potentially) a president. Too much is being made out of how weird it is that Romney is a Mormon and while Americans tend not to elect old people, McCain does not look or sound crazy-old.

On the Democrats' front, I am a big supporter of John Edwards because I like that he is staking out different framing/philosophical grounds for the political discussions. Not only is that good because he is approaching it correctly but it is a generally good thing for candidates to disagree on these fundamental issues of how to approach subjects, not just the end policies. This is a good idea because in real life, those are what the disputes amount to. No one wants children to go without health care or for poor people to starve or to waste money on ineffective military ventures, the actual disagreement is about how to decide what is effective and how best to improve people's lives. That is why the whole phenomenon of "scoring political points" strikes most people as stupid.

However, from a purely political stand point, I think that Edwards is dead in the water. He is consistently polling third and with a growing spread between him and Obama/Clinton. The only way to make up that ground effectively is to attack the front runner. With Obama positioned second but close, he stands to gain from staying on a positive message, allowing Edwards to draw blood on Clinton and staying above the "common politics" both of them will engage in. Given the incentives and their likely results, I think that Obama, in spite of his milquetoast rhetoric at present is in a very strong position as the primaries play out. While Hillary Clinton has the advantage right now, she will have to defend against attacks from both her right and her left and there is not a lot of room for her support to grow as there are more people absolutely unwilling to vote for her than there are for any other candidate.

Monkey Sex? It's the Bomb!

2007-10-22T14:37:00.000-04:00

October has been a tough month for politicians. Today we highlight the stories of three pols, one in Pakistan, one in India and one in America. Their stories offer us insight into life and death in politics and in the countries in which they worked.

First, in Pakistan, Bhutto did not die but many of her supporters (and maybe a couple of people who REALLY did not like her) were killed. She was fortunate enough to have just gone in to take a rest in her armored transport immediately before the bombs went off. It seems very early for either her, under a false flag operation, or Musharraf to make a move like this that will raise political tensions sharply. Those are not the only two parties with means and motivation to pursue such an attack but if you look at who stands to gain, those two really stand out.

Second, in India, a BJP politician falls to his death during a monkey attack. While they are very real, very scary and a tricky municipal issue in several Indian cities, there is something very basically funny about marauding packs of monkeys. My professor tells a funny story about eating bananas with his cousin on the roof of his house when he was a boy in Benaras. As they sat eating the bananas, they spied a pack of monkeys running across roofs towards them. The two boys had no time to go and hide so they crammed all the remaining bananas in their mouths and stood their ground, hoping the monkeys would leave them alone. When the leader of the monkeys arrived, my professor tried to be as still as he could while this monkey searched around. Finally, the monkey came over to where my professor stood, looked at him and slapped him in the cheek. The young boy spat banana everywhere and the monkeys feasted. The news story is more somber but for Muslims, there is a certain schadenfreude that comes with a BJP politician dieing as a result of the monkeys that cannot be killed because of the sensibilities of the hardcore Hindus that the BJP represents.

Finally, back home. There is not one good news source about this story so I am breaking an unofficial rule of the blog and linking to another blog. Rev. Gary Aldridge wound up dead as a result of suffocation
when he was hogtied, wearing two complete wetsuits and a diving mask. It was only after he failed to show up for church services that he was found. Normally, a minister would not be considered a political operator (ideally) and this would be a tremendous tragedy rather than a politically poignant anecdote. When you work for Jerry Falwell and get behind what his movement is striving for, dieing in this way makes you a metaphor.

Redesign and The Importance of Being Snottily Ironic

2007-10-12T15:29:00.000-04:00

It should be clear but some of what I have written is sarcasm, abusing bombast and taking right wing positions I do not believe to highlight their absurdity. Unfortunately, this does not work well for people who do not actually know me or my positions and so I just sound like a confused, puddle-deep jerk. Jerk and confused, I could live with but I do want this writing to be useful for people who are not my close friends and family as well, so I am going to knock it off. Mostly.

The site has changed to reflect that and also because I screwed up the old design somehow. From now on, I will be posting a weekly bit from my national security class with David Cole. He is a good thinker and I like where his values lie.

Right now, I am reading The Terror Presidency by Jack Goldsmith and while there is nothing out-and-out wrong with the book, I cannot really recommend that you read it unless you are in law school, are interested in law school-ish thing, or are a huge geek for insider political structures. It is very interesting to me to hear Goldsmith's political and legal philosophies and how those played out in the decisions he made but a lot of the reasons those fights are interesting are pretty obscure legal arguments. I cannot imagine, say, my brothers who are both very intelligent people pursuing advanced degrees, getting a lot out of this book.

I have at least two issues from the book that merit writing about, though. Expect those in the coming days. They really illustrate a lot of what has been problematic about the Bush administration, at least to my mind. That is, I am sure, the point that Jack Goldsmith is making though I still have about forty pages to get through.

Ramadan Mubarak

2007-09-15T15:31:00.000-04:00

Cheers everyone. I will bring back more to this when school and the job search settles down. Do not let anyone fool you, being in school is great but being able to work is even better.

West Africa Posting Bookend (I Can't Figure Out if This Is Great or Horrible)

2007-08-21T15:09:00.000-04:00

Part of the improvement in Liberia's tranquility is the arrival in January of an Indian, all-woman UN police unit. As a feminist, I am ambivalent about the news. There are clearly many advantages to having women working in this capacity given the shoddy record of male peacekeeping forces in the populations they are supposed to be assisting, but having an all-female SWAT team ready to swoop in and clean up man-made messes highlights just how bad the system already is. I have taken issue in the past with people claiming that one cannot change the [justice, political, patriarchal] system from within the context of the system but examples like this make me unsure that work from within is effective, or at least, sure that whatever work you do in the system better be done damn precisely and deliberately.

On the one hand, it is completely awesome that there are Indian women going to work as police protection for UN workers in Liberia. Police work has traditionally been one of the manliest of jobs , appealing to our notions of men as the strong, the protectors and those who will take care of bad guys. With women stepping into those roles, a lot of asinine assumptions must be questioned and new paradigms set, both certain good things. Gender roles that are societally enforced restrict freedom and only terrorists and liberals are really for that. As far as gender roles are to exist, they should be chosen by the individuals involved without the pressure of worrying about being too butch or too femme. I think most people who have progressed beyond the stage of 'boys wearing pink is icky' would agree with the idea that people should be able to choose their own lifestyle free from the constraints of bigots.

The other side of this coin is that it is horrifying that there is a need for a special "Lady Patrol" with their 22 male "logistical sidekicks" who come in and use their magical, vaginal powers to fix all the male fuckups and make the UN peacekeepers polite and kind. The problematic behavior of the male UN troops should be addressed on its own. If the solution involves integrating women into their ranks, then great, that non-exclusion would be good on its own terms as well. Obviously, as Abu Ghraib so poignantly displayed, mixed sex settings (the US Army is a bit under 20% women) do not assure 100% positive results. This current solution of the female squad strikes me as a "boys will be boys" type shrug on the part of those in charge of the UN's troops and a quixotic, offensive hope that women will have a civilizing effect on all those barbaric mans.

It may work, if only because women are less likely to tolerate the sexual assault of women and are less likely to be quiet about it if they are in a setting with many like-minded individuals but that is beside the point. The real problem here is that MEN SHOULD NOT TOLERATE THE SEXUAL ASSAULT OF WOMEN. Let me be the first to point the finger my own way: I do not always call out people when they say sexist things in front of me, I sometimes laugh at sexist jokes and even when I see active emotional abuse of a woman, I do not always step up as I should. And true, how much harder must it be for someone whose identity as a man is bound to the mistreatment of women or to the group ethic of protecting your fellows above all else? That remains the problem that needs to be addressed: men are willing to hush up, hide and facilitate the mistreatment of women. It is also a problem if women are excluded from military service. The two may have a deep, common root but today both are problems deserving individual attention.

Brief Follow UP

2007-08-21T14:56:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned Liberia in my post on Sierra Leone, here is some more, relevant good news. Seems that Liberia is becoming more stable and over a third of the UN troops there are to be sent home. One imagines that the growing stability is not due to improved weapon distribution conditions in the country.

Dil Dil Pakistan

2007-08-14T18:01:00.000-04:00

I was not going to but I could not help myself. Happy number 60, Pakistan. And tomorrow, we can all wish India congratulations on forming a country out of the parts of South Asia that were not already Pakistan.

A funny story... The biggest India booster I know and I were talking about various countries' independence days (unfortunately, not iterations of the soul-shakingly awesome action film with Will Smith) a while back and she was insisting that India gained its independence before Pakistan. We argued back and forth for quite a while, with her insisting India was five years older. Eventually, we consulted the intarnets because neither of us would give up. We figured out that her belief was based entirely on her recollection of the movie 1942 A Love Story and that tells you basically all you need to know about that.

Hooray

2007-08-14T01:03:00.004-04:00

Lest it be thought that I only post about things that give me an opportunity to be ironic, angry or sarcastic, let me post one of the news stories that has touched my heart more than any in a long, long time. It seems the recent election in Sierra Leone has gone quite well. After two terms, President Ahmed Kabbah is stepping down and voter turnout is high, with over half the country registered to vote. Bear in mind, we are less than a decade out from the time when RUF (Revolutionary United Front) soldiers were hacking people's limbs off and the country was being torn apart by a shockingly horrific civil war. Now, the country is running its own elections with what there is every reason to expect will be a peaceful transfer of power.

There will be a great story written someday by someone with more brains and talent than I possess that compares the Middle East with the region of West Africa around Sierra Leone and Liberia. Both areas were blessed with natural resources that are highly valued around the world but particularly in richer countries. Both were stricken with conflict, unrest and authoritarianism that stemmed, at least in part, from that wealth. Both had problematic colonial legacies. The Great Lakes region might deserve a mention in that tale, with a similar trajectory but I know even less about that area than the first two.

The point of the story will be that no one likes instability and chaos in their own country. Because of this, events will tend to resolve themselves and no situation is hopeless. The news story mentions that the Sierra Leone civil war ended as the rebels agreed to disarm and turned their guns in. I cannot help but observe that as the Iraqi civil war is really cranking up, America has been handing more guns out. It is perverse and a very American way of looking at a problem. For anyone who stumbles across this and is somehow ignorant of the American way, we are quite good when it comes to fixing what looks bad, fighting symptoms and answering to emergencies. We are outrageously bad at rooting out the source of problems, preventative care, and planning ahead to save ourselves trouble later. You can find examples of this in our approach to infrastructure, our gun policy, our health care system, and how we approach the world in our foreign policy. The Middle School Lunchroom of international diplomacy does not allow for backing down or trying to talk out compromise positions if they "are the ones who started it."

BOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

2007-08-13T22:43:00.000-04:00

You might think that saying "another 9/11 would help America" is a sign that you are an agent of the "anti-freedom" hordes but in this case, the writer, Mr. Stu Bykofsky, clearly figures himself a patriot, wishing for the harmony of the different segments of our society that followed the first 9/11. Of course, that came at the cost of 3,000 people and a couple major landmarks. Oh well, I can only imagine what sort of things my grandmother would say if she could crank up an intarwebz machine and start a blog on the tubes. SWEET RAPTOR JESUS, hold the presses (literally), this guy is a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News?

Now, listen, I think we can all get on board for some righteous American harmony centered around the idea of kicking foreign brown ass but why have it come at the expense of something that is really valuable to us? Can't we just agree to express our desires to make the Middle East a glass parking lot based solely on our annoyance at their refusal of our great gift of Democracy? OPEC is probably fucking us too, I mean, gas is really expensive and if terrorist juice (my own nickname, HAHAHAHA) profits have to go to them anyway, we should make make their cut as low as possible. Also, Stu makes a critical error. America was not united, focused on the real enemy: large swathes of the fifth column, primarily coddled university students, wacko university professors and the "urban" poor were still dancing their favorite dance move, doing the "Blame America First!" jig. Like when America tries to promote freedom, democracy and safety for the people living in Israel, they are begging for direct flight service to the 95th floor of the World Trade Center.

UPDATE
Looks like he has cut and run even while I was drafting my bitchin take down of his lily-livered column. Here, in his own words, the man snivels:

I led my column saying, "I was thinking another 9/11 would help America." I was speculating on the effect of an attack, not calling for it. Later I said I had no doubt terrorists are planning to attack us again. "If it is to be, then let it be." I am resigned to an attack, not calling for it.

Resigned to an attack, he is just saying it will come and that it will be good for America so we can "focus on the real enemies." Now, some might say that if "the real enemies" left us the fuck alone henceforth and did not attack, we would have no reason to focus on them at all and could go back to the culture of unpleasantness that passes for American life. Those people are pinko, coward dhimmicrats. Do not be tricked by the easy lie that the Global War on Terror disappears when we are no longer attacked. We go to war with terrorism for more than just that, we go to war because it is the right thing to do. Besides, if America does not bomb countries that might conceivably one day threaten us, who will?

Sure, but...

2007-08-10T02:08:00.000-04:00

Far be it from me to take issue with a piece printed in an actual news source, let alone so august a publication as the Dawn, but if I may, for a second, pull on my sass pants, I take great exception to something Irfan Husain wrote.

Sure, good points. There are pluses and minuses to Partition having happened and I agree with him that Pakistan would probably be less developed if it were a mass with India and Bangladesh. For examples, see Bihar, Assam and other areas with high Muslim populations, especially far flung ones. He is exaggerating the potential savings of not being armed to fight one another. It seems very Pollyanna-ish to say the one South Asian mega-country would not have huge defense expenditures since they would be bordering the always-ready-to-expand China. Plus, a united Hindustan's position in the Cold War would be borderline impossible to guess, as India tended Soviet and Pakistan was solidly in the American camp. His treatment of religion is facile but not worth going into.

The article steadfastly ignores the giant elephant [racist] in the room even as it is using its prehensile trunk to sling its shit all over the walls while bellowing for attention. Obviously, the deaths related to migration during Partition were a net loss to the Subcontinent. The horrific manner and the sheer number of deaths should at least be mentioned in a fantasy piece about what might have happened if the creation of Pakistan and India as separate countries had never happened. It seems like a million dead and the shocking images of the trains of death would make a tremendous impression worldwide, but sadly, those horrors, more recent than the Holocaust, seem to have slipped from Mr. Husain's mind even as he writes from Pakistan.

I Need to Write Less

2007-08-10T00:37:00.000-04:00

Here is a very interesting story from the New York Times about democracy promotion. The one side presented is that American support is a kiss of death. I think an equally probable way of looking at the issue is that America tends not to support candidates that the citizens of other countries like. Off the top of my head, I can think of no other society that limits governmental action in the market and citizens' daily lives as much as America does. Given that we have a particular idea of appropriate governance that is an outlier internationally, I do not see why it is surprising that who we like in other countries is not who the citizens of those countries like.

On the other hand, no one likes other countries messing with their elections. If you can remember those dreary days when Clinton was in office before we found out who was with us and who was against us (the whole world except Albania), one of the major scandals of his that did not involve sex was the accusation that he took money from Japan and China. Lord-a-mercy, I think I have the vapors: money from the Orient! There is a rational motivation to not want powerful outsiders meddling in your group that is sunk deep into human survival instincts. I am pretty sure that is universal.

Either way, the moral of the story is that the USA needs to stop the schizophrenic, rhetorical tap dancing and figure out if we like democracy or if we like states that are not going to get in our way when we want to beat the shit out of other countries. Both are ends to themselves and while not logically mutually exclusive, it is turning out that way in practice. Unmolested democracies tend to result in governments that resist economic exploitation, a net loss for a rockin dude like me on the very top of the economic food chain, but they do tap into that idea that everyone in the world deserves freedom. Or some limp-wristed, Volvo-driving idea like that.

LOL WTF NEtwork NEws?

2007-08-09T20:31:00.001-04:00

I have had the privilege of simultaneously working from home, not having a home and crashing at a friend's place out in Ballston. That puts me in walking distance of the justifiably famous, though declining, Food Factory. Notice that the review in that link is over a decade old. If I am within walking distance of a place that serves zabihah meat, it, as the kids say, is on, a state of affairs that bodes poorly for my wallet, waistline and [entirely unconnected] ability to attract women when I move to Crystal City later this month. So, when I am taking a break from my current projects on paper markets, waste trading and other pants-tentingly exciting research, I walk myself down to Food Factory to recharge with roti, keema and the owner uncle's thoughts about whatever CNN is talking about.

Most recently, that has been the bridge and mine collapses. While we were sitting there today, word came across the wire that the mine had three hundred (300) violations in the last three years, happily, only 118 of them were serious enough to potentially cause death. The best part of this report for those who like mine collapses was that this is an above average safety record for coal mines in this country. Though the mine may have collapsed, the owner IS drilling down to supply them with food, water and air proving, once again, that unions are for pussies and anarchists. I bring this up because Uncle's response is to brandish a piece of roti with which he has picked up some channaa and declare "300 violations, in this country!" questioningly while shaking his head. As the owner/operator of an eating establishment for nigh on a quarter, my guess is that he is quite familiar with violations of code.

The other big CNN stories not dealing with the national heat wave were the story of the two Muslims stopped and arrested in South Carolina and the Marines' trials for the massacre in Haditha and the one about execution style murders in Newark. Unfortunately, all I know about the first case comes from CNN because teh liberal mediaz will stop at nothing to aid the Moslem takeover (dhimmification!!!!) of America, including not reporting a traffic stop in South Carolina where they found an explosive device ("that made a loud bang, similar to a firecracker") and detained a couple Muslims. Thank sweet Baby Jesus that CNN is not letting them get away with it. Now, for those of you whose soles have never been lovingly caressed by the gossamer red clay of Lower Carolina, you may not be aware that all manner of wildly dangerous fireworks are totally legal there. In fact, there are a whole series of racist signs (the worst "Sleepy Mexican" signs must have come down or people have the good sense not to put pictures of them online) coaxing you into a huge fireworks store immediately as you cross into South Carolina on I-95. All in all, driving fast, explosives in cars and things blowing up in South Carolina are neither uncommon events nor national news, especially since no charges have, as yet, been filed. Now, it could be that on Monday, I will look like a real asshole when it turns out that these two were carrying homemade bottlerockets filled with anthrax and nuclear bombs and are charged with attempting to explode Charleston but my guess is that I will be able to maintain my self-righteous indignation at this story. As an aside, since I am touchy about traffic stops getting out of control (story of my arrest coming later), it sure is weird that they are showing the bomb removal equipment next to the open trunk and these two were stopped for speeding. I would love to know the series of events that led from point a to being put in jail.

As far as the Marines' story, I do not want to make this space all about the Iraq war, but come on. Due mostly to laziness and ignorance, I do not know the chain of command in the Marines but if Captain Stone was charged with dereliction of duty for not reporting facts of the murders, and the murders were not even investigated until after Time reported on this story, it seems like everyone up the chain of command who knew about the massacre and hoped it would just go away should be up on charges of dereliction of duty. If the charges really are unwarranted (and it sounds like the other guy's were) good for the justice system for not just trying to scapegoat these men. My issue with this is that CNN reported on the dropping of the charges today as a relief for those families. Nothing about the cover-up and outright fabrications or the cold comfort for the families of the dead, a cynical total of $38,000, which seems like important context.

Apart from all of these stories I am opining on being CNN news broadcasts that I watched while stuffing my fat, white, American face, the tie that binds them is that all of them mention terrorism. The hopes and fears about terrorism playing a part, the terrorist insurgents that made up the victim's cast in the original version of the Marine's story about the Haditha killings, all feeding into a vast meme that terrorists are lurking everywhere news happens. When the bridge and mine stories have soothing pronouncements that "officials can find no evidence of terrorism," they remind the viewing public that in another incident, on another day, it very well could have been terrorists attacking our freedom by way of our bridges and rural coal mines.

And the worst part of all is, I can feel it impacting my brain. I am a Muslim, I am sitting and conversing with an uncle from Afghanistan, also Muslim, about the best parts of Islam. We agree that it is the focus on scholarship and learning and share an outrage at the ignorant mullahs who want to keep women from schools because they do not know any better themselves. In this context even, I am watching CNN, afraid that the next story is going to be about Muslims doing something crazy and that the present story about the heat index being deadly across the country is somehow linked to Islamofascistical activity. That's nuts! I should never have the thought "I hope it was not a Muslim" just because there is an unsolved murder in Newark being discussed on CNN.

I would love to say that this is because my friend Sabri Benkahla was just just put in prison for perjury charges in a practical double-jeopardy. He was found innocent of charges that he trained in a terrorist camp and supported the Taliban but was found guilty of perjury for not remembering particular names and conversations from five to seven years before when questioned about them. The prosecutors in the second trial claimed that was the equivalent of wiping clean a hard drive so that the government could not get evidence from it. I would love to say that my concern for the next image on the screen being a friend of mine up on terrorism charges is what makes me afraid in this way but it is not true. It is a different fear, one viscerally about terrorism by Muslims just like the assholes I overheard on the subway two days ago talking about towelheads. When I feel my subconscious buying into such a vicious narrative, I think to myself: "Self, this is probably as close as we are ever going to get to understanding what Said was talking about with regard to internalized Orientalism."

The Dead Enders

2007-08-08T12:04:00.000-04:00

Pic From: Jayel Aheram, fickr creative commons.

I watched the very good "No End in Sight" last night with several of my friends. That movie and the discussions I had with people about it before and afterwards provided fodder for several posts. So, let's start from the beginning.

First, the movie makes a prediction that had we avoided some grave missteps early on (such as allowing the looting to occur), we could have WON TEH IRAQ!! To me, this is mostly empty guessing. If all we learn from this war is that when you invade a country, it is a bad idea to allow gangs to run rampant while you look on with machine guns, then we really have historic levels of waste from our Iraq adventure. I imagine that if you polled Mouthbreathers Anonymous, they would have provided you the same insight and then we would have had nearly two trillion dollars back in the economy to invest in the future and spend on limp-wristed liberal payout programs like children's healthcare. Even the Bush administration realizes that the Bush administration has executed this war poorly but that leaves two questions to be answered. 1) Absent the colossal fuck-ups, could this have been a good idea in some alternate reality? 2) What do we do now?

1) There are two schools of thought on whether or not fighting Iraq could have been a net good if it had been pursued another, less monumentally retarded way: YES and NO. This is an important question that deserves further discussion but in book form, not a blog post. My feeling is that the way that the War on Iraq would have had to have been executed to make it a net good would have made it too unpopular to have happened. It would have required openness and honesty about the reasons for going, the costs that could be expected and it would have required more deliberation about how we were going to win the peace. Faced with the reality of those choices, my guess (based on our current queasiness) is that the American public would have been less gung-ho about kicking the sandy shit out of Iraq.

My impression has always been that America was hit by a spitball on 9-11 and we knew it was one of the geeky kids over on the other side of the room. As the big, popular kid, all those nerds french-kissing their inhalers looked roughly the same and so we beat the one who seemed most likely to have shot the spitball and then, because we were angry, beat the snotty-nosed kid who had reputedly made comments about our mother. Unfortunately, the relation between nations is quite high schoolish, at base, with much posturing and self-perpetuating power moves.

All of this ties into the way the war was sold, another issue too big for the blog medium, but suffice to say that as evidenced by the poll numbers, America was not expecting the war to go the way it has. At the very least, America should have been ready for the possibility and if we were going to get into a war, should have been steeled by our leaders for the task of sacrificing as necessary to see the accomplishment of our goals. No sacrifices were demanded of most Americans today (those are being made by mortgage for the folks not serving) and the rosiest of scenarios were played up. No wonder that there is no will to continue to fight when most folks have nothing invested and it appears that we were misled.

2) What do we do now? Most folks around me are pinko terrorist-coddlers and so they advocate a gradual draw down of troop levels starting immediately. To my best guess, the ostensible reason for gradualness is to keep from creating a power vacuum. However, the best part of "No End in Sight" is that it clearly shows the power vacuum already happened back in the early days when looting was allowed to continue without interference from the US troops and when the Iraqi army and civil servants were cast out of their jobs.

Basically, the only way for things to get worse is for current trends to continue but since they are current trends, they ARE continuing with American troops there. To my mind, it is the gladdest of hopings to think that our troops are going to get some magical ability to broker a political compromise to warring factions that are as much Bloods and Crips at this point as inter- and intra-necine crusaders. Since the worst scenario is the continuing (or acceleration) of present trends and since these are occurring with full troop levels, I sincerely cannot fathom what a deliberately staggered troop withdrawal accomplishes. I am open to arguments, though.

Let me add, as a coda, that the American fighting forces are the best in the history of man. I have no doubt that, given good leadership and a good plan, the American military could fight any other conventional force and come out victorious. Also, we should be very grateful to the men and women who serve and their families because they are the only adults who are actually sacrificing for this war. The children are, but they do not yet know it. The basic problem is that the mess we have in Iraq is no longer a military issue, it is a political one with military/law enforcement symptoms. As a facile metaphor, if I had a Blessed Hammer of Hitting +5, I could hit anything with that hammer and probably repair a deck in record time with a great outcome, because that requires nailing boards to other boards. However, I could not repair a broken relationship, because, though both situations call for repair, only one primarily calls for a hammer. In fact, wielding the hammer in that second case could even be thought to make the situation worse if you were a goddamn freedom-hating hippie.

All Right Mothers and Fuckers!

2007-08-05T02:18:00.000-04:00

I am back! This time, the blog is going to be more substantive with a greater attention to making sense. Also, expect an increase in profanity because while the topics are going to be less personally oriented from here on out, the humor and prose style are going to make up for it. And guess what? I think swear words are pretty funny still.

There is a list of ideas to the left of the postings. The hypothetical point of these is to organize the posts under categories and to lend a sort of cohesion to what otherwise would be a patternless melange of what seems to be worth writing about. Feel free to contribute your own pithy bits. I they hold truth that seems widely applicable or if they merit considering for a prolonged time OR if they combine swear words in new and glamorous ways, I will add them to The List. Each of the snippets so far is either a puzzle that bothers me or a very important way of considering the information we encounter every moment of the day.

If I play this correctly, every post will have an appropriate picture accompanying it (after this one, which is an intro), will have an appropriate label from The List and will have content that is worth reading even if you do not know me directly. Whether I am launching virtual almanacs into the cold, dark reaches of OuterCyberwebzpace remains to be seen.

Black Fish

2005-07-18T03:24:00.000-04:00

I got lost on my way to an improv show last night. We wound through the Boston-like traffic of Karachi for about an hour and only saw the latter half of a two hour show. It was extremely funny to hear improv done in an accent that was not intentionally put on. I am going to start practicing with them soon and will either play or guest coach depending on what they want. They have a pretty solid audience of about fifty for weekly shows. Very impressive.

I am exhausted right now and cannot write properly. I will flesh something out later on. I think I might be a bit sick.

Mungo Pir

2005-07-11T07:16:00.000-04:00

Crocodile Saint. So, I mentioned this shrine in the last post and remembered how interesting the story behind this is.

A long time back, there was a Hindu man and he converted to Islam. He moved from what is now India to what is now Pakistan, in a pattern that would be replayed centuries later on a grander scale, more reminiscent of two large groups of people murdering millions of each other. His, however, was peaceful and succesful. Through the course of his journey, he became known for his devotion and holiness. Upon arriving to the spot he felt he wanted to be said to have arrived at, he setted in to wash off the dust of a long journey. The place was a natural sulfur spring so he had plenty of healing water to do his hygenics in. After his bath, he sat poolside and combed his hair just like any of us would do. However, when he pulled his comb through the overgrown locks he had cultivated during his travels, he knocked loose the lice that had established residency on his skull. Through the power of his holiness and God's limitless sense of humor, the lice became crocodiles when they hit the water.

When he died, a shrine was erected in his honor and the crocodile pool became a healing bath for those with physical ailments. To ease the danger of getting the healing power, capitalism has provided a bottled version that you can enjoy on the comfort of your couch, if you don't mind a sodden sofa. It is on the walls of the alligator enclosure that I saw the sign for Pepsi.

The Islamic appropriatness of shrines is a pretty contentious debate but if you were interested in it, I suggest you check it out on your own. Basically, purists say you ought to only have a very simple grave stone for the practical reason of having people not dig holes and be surprised by skulls or rotting corpses or what have you as generally, Muslims do not use coffins. They (purists) would say that to even have a distinguishing marker is haraam (forbidden, bad). However, more easygoing types feel that those people who were very good are probably going to get the ear of Allah better than those of us who are serial sinners. They, like the catholics, use the intermediaries of saints to try to get God to be better buddies with them. Gnerally, you will see more shrines in South Asia and fewer the closer you get to the Arabs who are widely known as flawless and thus have no need for saints.

2005-07-11T06:35:00.000-04:00

I haven't read many blogs but the list would seem to be an uncreative cop out for people who cannot trust themselves to write complete paragraphs that flow together in some way. However, I am experiencing a whole ton and not all of it works as a narrative. Just because I am doing it does not mean I won't call you out in the unlikely event I read your blog. I now know even better what sort of a move it is.

A list.

Office small talk is exactly the same here as it is in America: same awkward tentativeness about when to end it, same desire to aknowledge one another with as little commitment as possible.

The pace of life is so much slower here that it makes the difference between the country and city in America look tiny. There are a few laborers who work very hard, everyone else seems to be on a leisure pace at all times.

Cricket is more fun to play than baseball. Baseball is a much better spectator sport. Basketball and soccer beat both senseless with their simplicity and elegance. It is like if Bruce Wayne fought crime without the need to get all goth and weird. That made a lot more sense before I wrote it out.

Even if it were not a in a desert, the difference in cleanliness between Karachi and anyplace in America is amazing. Not sure why the difference in caring but it is just one of the problems people have an aquired helplessness about.

The cockroaches I have seen scurrying about on the apartment floor are bigger than the lizards.

As bad as the reputation of Karachi is, I hear more gunshots a night in Chapel Hill or in Durham than I have my entire time here. Oddly enough, there are assault rifles and large shotguns visible everywhere. Traffic is roughly equivalent to Boston (same aggression, less crowding but more wanton disregard for the rules of traffic) but no one gets as angry about it.

British people are very snooty about their humor. Also, I am not funny to the British. Unless I am being mean. My guess is that this is rooted in some national shortcoming.

When I was buying a fake designer shirt to wear to a rich folks get together, the guy at the store was asking my friend Talaak (nee, Talaal. Talaak means divorce in Arabic. Famously, repeating this three times to your wife officialy divorces you in Islam) where he was from. When Talaak told him London, the guy responded "boom boom!" making explosion gestures with his hands. 50 people died there in those boom booms but in Karachi, around half that number of policemen are murdered a month, so I guess that the impact is a little less here.

If our leaders and representatives are talking past each other as much as the little people and media are between the US and Pakistan, we are in trouble.

There are good people and there are narrow, ignorant people everywhere. It is heartening and a little disenchanting to see just how similar folks in Karachi are to folks anywhere I've ever been. If you or I are ever mystified about the actions of someone somewhere else, it is probably because we are missing a lot of relevant information.

Pepsi ads were painted on the walls of the crocodile shrine.

Karachi City is HOT HOT HOT!

2005-07-05T06:19:00.000-04:00

Wow, holy sweet Jesus hot. Imagine the hottest day in NC. Now, pretend you are in Florida instead. Then, pretend you are in Nicaragua. Then, pretend that you've hit a heat wave and it is smoggy and humid. 112 degrees on the beach with a sea breeze is socks rockingly hot. It is not the oven heat of the interior of a car sitting in the sun in Chapel Hill. That complete absence of oxygen is not there. However, for someone of my age and fitness level to have copious knee and back sweat from moving to take a sip of ice water is pretty spectacular.

Internet, phone and even electricity are relatively scarce resources here (the power just died and now my palms are sweating from lack of a/c), so I apologize to all of you that I told to keep up with me here on the blog. I will do better from this point on. That is because rather than sharing a phone with the twelve girls in their apartment (the guys' place has no phone or beds) I have begun my internship and can update from work.

That's right. Long rumored to be a namby-pamby liberal, I've kicked the closet door clear across the jungle-themed bedroom and step forward into my life as an intern at WWF. Not the barely hidden, ultra-homosexual wrestling extravaganza: they changed their name. This is the World Wide Fund for Nature: they also changed their name.

I work at the Wetland Center in Sand Spit, just outside Karachi. It is nice because I am a five minute walk from the Arabian Sea and because next to my seat there is a tank with baby Green sea turtles swimming in it. Please see the forthcoming photoplate a:. I plan to take on the task of caring for them as soon as I can. Also, in my remaining six weeks here I am going to try to update the marketing plan for this center and to produce a field guide for children about the wildlife in the mangroves around the center and in the ocean across the street.

Also, I got into Georgetown Law. I am still waiting on offers from Columbia (they'll get back to me after tuition is due in July) and UNC. These people have been suspiciously silent in their lack of dealing with me. They must be completely overwhelmed with applications or else I had some unsightly pants stain last time I went to visit them and they are too embarassed and polite to talk to me anymore. Only time will tell. Columbia is a certain first choice for me but UNC vs. Georgetown is a much bigger decision than I would have anticipated when I was first applying.

2005-06-16T15:05:00.000-04:00

It has been a week of saying goodbye. Thanks very much to those of you who bought me a meal or gave me a little something to help with my journey. It has meant a lot. I am not soliciting here but should you desire to help me still, please consider an online, tax deductible donation at www.impak.org. This is the overarching group that set me up with the WWF, the group with which I will be volunteering.

I leave tomorrow and I still have to pack my clothes for the trip. I have been gathering usefuls and getting food that I will not be able to get in Pakistan. Today, that meant sushi. I recommend that everyone who likes raw oysters give sea urchin a try. The texture is weird but it feels like a pleasant draught of cool, clean sea water when you eat it.

2005-06-03T18:51:00.000-04:00

This is the inaugural post. Just to have something up. Not to amuse, entertain or even captivate anyone, not just yet. I am going to Pakistan two weeks from tomorrow.

Before then, I'll have a more worthwhile post. Something about what I'm doing, etc. From then on, I hope to update this with at least fair regularity. And complete sentences.