...a certain shade of [green]

man, i suck at posting regularly.

2003-10-27T12:44:00.000-05:00

so i guess my current trend is to post something at work, claiming to expand or revisit the topic upon my return home, and then simply let the topic vanish into oblivion. well, i guess the explanation is that... i'm lazy. i thought of trying to come up with a better excuse, but i really am lazy. to lazy to make excuses, even.

i've been thinking lately about internal visualizations - seeing an idea in your head visually rather than textually. if that doesn't make sense, here's my own personal example - the calendar. i think of the months of the year, and the days within those months, in a sort of vertical racetrack diagram. july is at the top in the middle, and the line between december and january is at the bottom in the middle. that doesn't really make for symmetrical straightaways, but it's in my own head and i can twist it as i see fit. what's more, when i think of time passing, i visualize myself on the track, seeing the days and months lie straight ahead or curve off to the left as the case may be.

i'd like to know from where i got this idea.

kat tells me she has something similar in her mind, having to do with days or weeks or months or something like that. anyone else?

the downward spiral?

2003-09-29T12:52:00.000-04:00

haven't posted in a bit - apologies. had some stuff to take care of this weekend that couldn't have been done earlier (read: i went shopping).

this is big. this is very big. senior officials within the bush administration have been accused of outing a cia agent as a revenge tactic. the justice department is beginning an inquiry into the accusations.

here's the deal - joseph wilson was the diplomat sent on an mission to niger to check on the assertion in british intelligence that saddam had tried to buy yellowcake uranium there. he found no clear and convincing evidence and became one of the most outspoken critics of bush's use of the evidence in his justification for the war. in july, robert novak, a conservative columnist, tried to smear wilson by stating that it was his wife who got him the job by suggesting it. within the article, however, novak named wilson's wife - valerie plame - and cited 2 unnamed top administration officials as sources. since then, wilson has claimed that at least 3 journalists have told him that the white house contacted them trying to push the plame story. the washington post claims that their sources have confirmed that 2 top officials cold-called at least 6 journalists or reporters trying to push the story - fortunately only novak was slimy enough to take the bait.

more about this tonite when i'm not at work.

oh man...

2003-09-26T16:23:00.000-04:00

[i meant to write about this on tuesday but ran out of time, especially considering i was out of town on business. so pretend this is breaking news...]

edward said has died. what an unbelievable loss. not insofar as his death due to leukemia - that's wholly believable - but because of the tragic consequences this will have for palestinian advocacy, and even advocacy of the arab world in general. one day, when i'm not at work, i'll write about his influence on my own theories and beliefs. until then, i guess all i can say is r.i.p....

halloween, a month and a bit early.

2003-09-20T22:24:00.000-04:00

for the third time now in less than 4 weeks, the power's gone out in montgomery county [due to varying degrees of thunderstorms and our recently departed friend isabel]. makes me wonder if montgo county might have a bit of a structural problem. what's weird, though, is that each time we've not lost power here at the condo. in fact, right now the power is out across the street. and we're lighted and cooled and hot-watered. i think we're due for a lack of luck very shortly.

eeriest moment of power-outage observation - a school around here has emergency-generated light in some of the front foyers and rooms. the rest of the rooms, however, have some sort of emergency alert, consisting in part of strobes flashing every few seconds. these strobes, of course, are not coordinated. looks like either a haunted spookhouse or a scene from schindler's list [which is too gruesome to mention, really].

i'd like to post some substantive content one of these days.

oh man, it's like christmas!

2003-09-20T20:04:00.000-04:00

turns out my online photo album (link to the right) is actually still up and working. and i thought it was lost forever!

things get better every hour.

there's a title field now??

2003-09-20T16:24:00.000-04:00

hot damn. it's been a million years since my last post. and the world has apparently turned upside-down. or, maybe i've been looking at it through the back of a spoon. either way, give me a few to get reacquainted with this mechanism, and i'll be back online shortly.

2003-08-04T23:22:00.000-04:00

last update for a while... ok kids, i've gotta take off and start working in dc on wednesday, and i won't be updating for a while. on the 17th kat and i move into our new digs in silver spring, and it'll be god-knows how long before we get internet access. so, until that indefinite date, adieu...

oh, and email me if you want my new address...

2003-07-24T02:14:00.000-04:00

golly gee. i haven't updated in, oh, a little over two weeks. so, extremely short synopsis of the events during the time i've been home:

-> unpack luggage. unpack boxes. unpack room. sleep. [week one]
-> paperwork. filing work. transcript work. [week two]
-> careers services, resumes, cover letters, references. see dad, family, friends, drive lots in car. [week three]
-> interview, interview, find job. yay! find flat. oh boy... [current]

so yeah, next up is that damn flat-hunting experience. but i'm also excited, as i've got a really cool roommate who is bringing a fish tank :). the fun starts saturday afternoon...

2003-07-08T12:29:00.001-04:00

oh yeah... happy birthday to me :)

2003-07-08T12:29:00.000-04:00

finally! blogger wouldn't let me post to this damn thing since i've gotten back to the states! well, now that i'm back online, more updates to come...

2003-07-01T20:36:00.000-04:00

she's alive i'm home and in one piece! and tired! very tired!

more when i'm not asleep at the wheel...

2003-06-25T08:48:00.000-04:00

ahoy! i'm still alive - i promise! living out of a suitcase at a friend's flat right now, will be back in the states on 1 july, more updates after that. apologies to everyone who's visited only to find stale, crusty blog crumbs - there should be more soon!

2003-06-20T15:43:00.000-04:00

blatant post-jacking. so i've decided to steal this brilliant idea from kat and make some lists of my own [i can hear her now - "why ya gotta waste my flava? damn!!"]. i thought one of my last hurrahs should be a survey of what i will and won't miss about living here in edinburgh, or scotland generally, or the uk even more generally. and like kat says, i don't want to go home yet...

i don't mind leaving behind:
combination washer/dryers [the clothing "steamer"] ** rain as the dominant weather phenomenon ** £2.00 beer that fakes you out and really costs $3.00 or thereabouts [come to think of it, pricing in general - it's damn expensive here!]
** tourists on princes street and the royal mile ** stella artois and tennants ** chicken that costs more than a year's worth of tuition ** neighbours, east enders, hollyoaks ** celebrity obsessions and perpetual socioeconomic distinctions [exhibit a: the royal family; exhibit b: posh and becks] ** fake shawerma [damn russian shaverma! so good, and even spelled differently!] ** texting ** untrusting blockbuster - have a little faith, guys! ** resnet ** the bathroom sink taps in my flat - not only are they separated into hot and cold, but they push down instead of twist, and thus our water stops flowing after only a few seconds! ** scaffolding everywhere

reasons enough to stay:
scottish accents ** the book group and cutting it ** stella artois and tennants [masochism, i think] ** the metric system ** flapjacks, naan, and hummus ** trains! ** the crags right outside my bedroom window ** highland cows and sheep ** broken dialtones ** roundabouts [they're very efficient!] ** chippies at 2am ** easyjet, ryanair, etc. ** compact cars and the prevalence of stickshifts ** texting [annoying but still fun] ** being within a timezone or two of europe ** h&m ** british chocolate ** taking public transportation ** the generally more social welfare-oriented atmosphere [moreso in scotland than the rest of the uk] ** multiparty politics and an effective green party ** nile valley and jordan valley ** pubs and pub lunches ** walking everywhere ** double decker buses ** £1 and £2 coins ** wee green men ** mmehsg-pilf ** anna, devota, lauren and louise, not to mention laura, ellie, and everyone else i've met

i'm sure i've missed out some really good ones, and if i think of them i'll add them in.

2003-06-19T21:20:00.000-04:00

whoops! no one told me that it's been 6 days since i last posted! i suppose an update is in order then...

this is a time of many closings. the flat lease. the schoolyear. the year in edinburgh. 4 years of college generally. life in the holodeck [geek reference!]. i'll be moving out on monday morning and i've been packing for days now. i've thrown out most of my old, unworn or shunned clothing and suddenly my belongings seem lighter despite the accumulation throughout the year. maybe it's a ritual cleansing thing, a sort of defining purification. i don't know - my goal was to lighten my luggage. but it feels like it could be the start of something new, or at least looks that way in hindsight, which is proof enough to convince me that my life is run like a contrived novella, an episode of "full house" where the moral lessons always come on dad's knee. but it's nothing unique, hindsight is always useful for convincing ourselves of that anyway.

i'll be at a friend's flat for a week before i come back to the states on 1 july, so posting should be sparse for a while [a change indeed, you say]. after that i'm hoping for big changes but i'll settle for new shoes.

2003-06-14T21:43:00.000-04:00

happy father's day! love you very much, dad!

2003-06-13T21:58:00.000-04:00

the weather. or, what lies ahead. the weather is oftentimes not my best friend. on my list of Things Of Which I Am Truly Scared, populated by at most 4 or 5 entries, lies the force that is the tornado, a weather phenomenon with which i've been obsessed since elementary school. i used to watch the weather channel obsessively, scan the skies every few minutes for signs of peculiarities, go into a virtual shutdown during the windy run-up to a storm. i was 16 and driving home from school when, while listening to the radion, i learned that a funnel cloud appeared to touch down about 5 miles from where i was driving at the time - i drove to a friend's house instead and had a panic attack. a similar thing happened last summer at uva, but i was inside a computer lab at the time and didn't know until after the fact.

i guess i've gotten over my extreme fear of tornados and settled on the less adrenaline-filled awed fascination of them, but the weather still has the power to chill me. i was driving outside of charlottesville one night, right after midnight, in a fog that had settled below the clouds and was starting to reach towards the street lights. in the glow of the red and yellow sulfur lamps the fog looked like flames bearing down on the earth from above, hiding from sight in the distance between the lights. sometimes a fog will drift in here in edinburgh, or the clouds will hang low out of the sky and blanket the top of the crags, and i'll feel somewhat suffocated. a few nights ago, at around 11 or so, when the sky is still light enough to contrast with the clouds, a cloud moved through the sky as rain fell from its tail-end - i could see the rain falling against the sky, and it looked like the cloud was trying to grab the ground. it's times like these that i feel the weather is replete with personalities that make themselves known primarily to disquiet me.

but lately i've also noticed a kind of benevolence in the weather around me. in the week between my arrival to edinburgh and the beginning of the first term, the weather was gorgeous, warm, sunny and bright blue. that warmth ended on the first week of school, and has not returned. has not, that is, until last week, the last week of term and, incidentally, the last week of my career as an undergraduate. exams brought the warm and sunny skies back to edinburgh and with it some of the optimism that went with the anticipation of a year of school abroad. the weather speaks to me, i'm sure, and tells me not to be afraid of moving on.

*****

it's 3 o'clock in the morning and the birds are chirping again. every morning at 3am they do this. are they talking about the day just passed, or the one ahead?

2003-06-09T20:11:00.000-04:00

a simple reminder. to all those who argue that palestinian militant groups must cease violent activities for the peace process to begin again, remember that

"For radical groups such as Hamas, any peaceful resolution that recognizes Israel's existence is anathema..." [quote taken from this wapo story, which is interesting but not required reading.]

radical palestinian groups will not agree to a cease-fire for the road map's sake because they do not agree with the road map's conclusions - palestine, for them, cannot exist as part of a two-state solution. israel's existence is illegitimate, palestine is wrongly occupied, and any solution compromising these claims goes against the very pillars of their beliefs. any attempts by abu mazen to call for a cease-fire on the part of radical groups is futile because [a] radical groups do not recognize his authority as speaker for them or the palestinian people and [b] abu mazen is not the policy director of the radical groups. just a reminder.

2003-06-09T20:01:00.000-04:00

rapid modernization of britain's legal system. britain's barristers are forced to get with the times and conquer the latest in hip hop slang:

"This led to the faintly surreal experience of three gentlemen in horsehair wigs examining the meaning of such phrases as "mish mish man" and "shizzle my nizzle," the judge said.

i'm also pleased that the judge went searching on the internet for the meaning of the mysterious phrases. onward with the e-revolution!

2003-06-09T14:14:00.000-04:00

taking a flying leap over the celebratory gun. woohoo! israel has begun dismantling settler outposts! the road map seems to be working!

oh, wait. those were uninhabited outposts. and the next six of seven to be dismantled are also uninhabited.

[insert snide comment about the ineffectiveness of the whole "road map" operation itself.]

2003-06-09T11:29:00.000-04:00

aarrrgggghhhhhh!!! the man gets me down again! so i post a rant about why i hate the phrase "in these uncertain times", and i look up today and see an ad above my blog for the british red cross, asking for donations in "uncertain times". i give up!

back to scottish political thought. 24 hours from now and i'll be done with undergraduate studies forever!

**update: the man keeps getting me down. apparently haloscan goes down completely, and now it appears to have eaten some of my comments. one day i'll move to moveable type, as soon as i can afford it.

2003-06-09T06:39:00.000-04:00

intermission substance. so i'm off in a few minutes to go and study for my last final ever as an undergraduate, but i thought i'd leave you with these little bits in the meantime, just to let you know i'm still alive and functioning.

i used to think of myself as a language purist - i realized that this wouldn't work when i started writing philosophy papers and had to make up words to get across what i wanted to describe. i think this type of language innovation is perfectly ok. i'm also quite happy to allow mainstream slang into the accepted lexicon, especially if it's gone global. that being said, there's one particularly irking area of language innovation that gets me every time - i cannot stand it when people forget that a perfectly usable verb exists, and instead takes the noun form of the verb and creates another verb out of it. two examples: 'to orientate' [from 'orientation', original verb 'to orient'] and 'to conversate' [from 'conversation', original verb 'to converse']. in the case of 'to orientate', the oxford english dictionary lists the definition as 'to orient'. utter redundancy. and 'to conversate' doesn't even exist!!! [by the way, i also have issues with the oxford english dictionary's hegemony over lexicology - as well as lexicography - but that's another post entirely.]

*****

i had this extremely strange dream the other night. i was with both of my parents [which, incidentally, doesn't really happen anymore - divorce and all] and we were in this strange little town on a hill with wooden houses on stilts. the hill wasn't huge, but the ground was raised enough such that i could see quite far in the distance. we were standing around doing god-know's-what when i saw a huge fireball in the distance coming toward us. it didn't actually look like a fireball - it looked instead like an avalanche of fire, or maybe like the dust cloud that flew down the streets of manhattan when the towers collapsed on 09/11. anyway, it was evident that this huge fireball/wave/thing was lava flow from a volcano that was coming for us, and fast, and so we all ran ran ran away from it as fast as we could. eventually we stopped running, not because we had outrun it, but because we realized that lava was coming for us in all directions and we couldn't run anywhere else. the lava behind us stopped flowing for some reason, and we found ourselves encircled by fresh lava. our plot of untouched ground was maybe 10 meters in diameter, not much room, but enough to pace. at this point i realized that we were all going to die in this little circle of ground - the lava would be too hot to walk on for days [don't know if that's true, but it was in the dream], the town around us was destroyed, and for some reason it appeared - and at least i felt intensely - that we were the last people on earth. it was strange, knowing i was going to die in that little circle, and that i couldn't stop this death through any particular actions of my own. i was extremely scared when i woke up.

2003-06-06T11:05:00.000-04:00

grinding nemo. this is brilliant [incidentally, if you haven't seen the trailers for disney's new movie finding nemo, you should go see them right now]:

COSTA MESA, Calif. - Kids be warned: Flushing your pet fish down the drain will not send it safely into the ocean as depicted in the new computer-animated movie "Finding Nemo."

A company that manufactures equipment used to process sewage issued a news release Thursday warning that drain pipes do lead to the ocean - eventually - but first the fluid goes through powerful machines that "shred solids into tiny particles."

"In truth, no one would ever find Nemo and the movie would be called 'Grinding Nemo,'" wrote the JWC Environmental company, which makes the trademarked "Muffin Monster" shredding pumps.

In the unlikely event Nemo survived the deadly machines, the company added, he would probably be killed by the chlorine disinfection.

oh, and a shredding machine named "muffin monster"? are these people smoking crack? brilliant.

2003-06-04T06:54:00.000-04:00

toilet literature. i'm still cramming for exams, so not much substance, but i thought i'd give you this nice work of poetry i saw on the bathroom wall in the hostel in amsterdam:

i'm sitting
and shitting
with nothing to do
so i'm writing
this poem
for me and my poo.

2003-06-01T19:03:00.000-04:00

oy. i am officially back from amsterdam, covered with the requisite sunburn and mosquito bites. blogging will be light for the next week or so as i am trying to study for my last set of finals ever, but i might put something up now and then.

six amsterdam observations:
1. old rusty bikes are cool. really really cool.
2. once you've been on double-decker trains, you'll never go back to single decks again.
3. english is everywhere. everywhere. i mean, half of the ads and tv spots are in english, for god's sake. un-subtitled, even!
4. do not pretend to 'understand' celsius temperatures, even if you have lived with the metric system for a year, if you are born and bred on the farenheit scale. you will end up with sweaty clothes and a sunburn.
5. there are certain birds, not ducks apparently [but waterbirds nonetheless], that can walk - er, run - on water. they do this most often to scare the ducks around them shitless.
6. amsterdam actually does not smell like weed unless you are standing directly in front of a coffeeshop.

2003-05-24T20:01:00.000-04:00

short hiatus. to anyone wondering why i haven't updated in a bit - my brother's here, and we're taking edinburgh by storm, so there's not much time for blogging in the mayhem. we're off to amsterdam on wednesday so i probably won't have much to say until next monday, if i can tear myself away from studying at that point. so until then, adieu...

2003-05-20T10:18:00.000-04:00

"in these uncertain times." the use of this phrase is really beginning to bug me. i was watching tv today and the british red cross asked for donations because we live "in these uncertain times". now, wait a minute. have times ever been certain? the present condition of uncertainty refers to the visibility of terrorism in light of 09.11.01 i'm sure, but before this uncertainty there was the uncertainty of post-soviet russian relations, and the uncertainty of the cold war before that, and of course the holocaust if we are to go back even further. and that's just referring to the 'western' world and the events it perceives as a danger to itself. it seems to me, then, that times are neither 'certain' nor 'uncertain' - history simply occurs according to itself and nothing more, and to try and determine a point at which times become 'certain' rather than 'uncertain' comes close to arguing that we can guide future events according to the course we wish them to take. or, in other words, the only dangers present in 'certain' times are those we ignore, since we should already be aware of them.

i'll stop short of a philosophical treatise. but i'm getting damn tired of being told that times are 'uncertain'.

2003-05-15T17:07:00.000-04:00

neato. unfogged, which has some pretty cool stuff up anyway [mostly neat little philosophy posts], alerts me to fuzzmail, which is quite possibly the coolest thing i've seen on the net for a while now [ok, maybe this week].

ok, now i'm really going to write this essay all night. i am. really.

2003-05-14T21:48:00.000-04:00

yet another reason why britain rules. jedi knights have overtaken a major religion in terms of followers. in the 2001 census, nearly 400,000 people identified themselves as jedi, while only 260,000 said they were jewish. i take this as proof positive that:
[a] as my title suggests, britian rules.
[b] star wars also rules.
[c] perhaps asking about religious denomination is inappropriate [or at least yields obviously skewed results].

2003-05-11T21:14:00.000-04:00

yeah! this is possibly the coolest album art i've ever seen:

their music is great as well.

[reminds me of david shrigley.]

2003-05-11T20:33:00.000-04:00

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!! [it's still sunday in the states right now. and don't worry, i didn't forget, just forgot to post this in particular.]

mother's day was march 31 here. it's strange not being able to find a mother's day card anywhere.

2003-05-11T16:38:00.000-04:00

continental v. analytical philosophy. this is why i absolutely despise analytical philosophy. if anyone can explain it in terms accessible to a person of non-analytical-philosophy persuasion, by all means do. i'm sure matthew's a great kid [though some of his posts can be quite haughty] but i simply *abhor* logic games and letter people.

i think one of the marks of a good theory is accessibility, and this is where continental philosophy is often miles ahead of analytical. not always, of course, but often. i could go on, but i know no one's interested.

**update: edited for clarity.

2003-05-09T15:59:00.000-04:00

time waster. today i played a fun game called "spot the fake leg in the windblown trousers". it was exceptionally windy today, and everyone's trousers were glued to their legs by the wind, so it was exceedingly easy to see what they had to offer underneath. score:

2 fake legs.
1 very much unprotected-by-underwear penis.

the game didn't last for very long.

2003-05-07T16:26:00.000-04:00

the road map. so ariel sharon is calling for an abandonment of the palestinian insistence on the 'right of return' as a condition, not for the final peace settlement in 2005, but for israel's initial movement forward on the road map. that is to say, for israel to even endorse the road map, the palestinian refugees [around 4 million, including the family of those of the 1948 diaspora] must give up their demand for the 'right of return' to the homes from which they were evicted 1948 and shortly after. sharon's reason is that the return of palestinian refugees would be a de facto destruction of israel through a dilution of its jewish character. leaving completely aside the issue of whether a 'jewish character' is an issue of state population controls, even with the return of 4 million refugees to their homes in israel, the arab israeli population will not constitute a majority [according to the figures i've been able to dig up - correct me if i'm wrong].

of course, the refugee issue was supposed to have been addressed during the final peace conference in 2005 with "an agreed, just, fair, and realistic solution". but it's clear that, even before sharon's current demand, israel was never prepared to accept this part of the peace plan. at the behest of israel, there are no references to un security council resolution 194, which asserts the right of return of the 1948 refugees:
the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible.
israel's objection to 194 is that it predetermines the outcome of the refugee solution by calling for the right of return. however, israel refuses to acknowledge its role in the creation of the refugees - indeed, it refuses to even *consider* the palestinian diaspora population as a refugee population - and in doing so predetermines the outcome of the solution by declaring that no problem exists in the first place for a solution to address.

notwithstanding israel's intransigence, there are a huge number of problems with the road map as it stands.

first, the road map calls for a freezing of all israeli settlement building - including natural growth - and a dismantling of all settlement outposts built since march 2001. on the surface, this is a good thing. however, there are some important considerations:
[a] obviously, this does not include any dismantling of settlements built before march 2001, which includes those built during the very beginning month or so of sharon's leadership, in addition to those built under barak, netanyahu, etc and so on. these settlements were built in such a way as to undercut the viability of a palestinian state by cross-cutting palestinian areas through roads and highways, monopolizing water sources, etc. these settlements WILL REMAIN.
[b] israel has always argued that any peace solution includes its right to provide for the safety and security of its people, whether in israel proper or in the settlements. in practice, this means the deployment and redeployment of the idf, protected roads and highways for israeli use only, walled enclaves, checkpoints, etc etc. the continued existence of settlements will undoubtedly be accompanied by the continued insistence by israel on its right to provide security, undermining any sort of palestinian effort to consolidate its sovereignty over the west bank and gaza. it should be understood that a continued israeli military and security presence in areas which should be under the authority of palestinians is the same thing as the CONTINUED OCCUPATION of the west bank and gaza by israel.

there's also the issue of parallel development - i.e., progress is supposed to be made by the israelis and palestinians on a parallel basis. however, sharon has declared that he will not begin dismantling settlements until the palestinians end violence against israel. i've got some gripes with this as well - whereas the settlement-building can be attributed to israeli policy [and sharon et al in particular], palestinian violence is not attributable to *all* palestinians, or even to the palestinian authority. mahmoud abbas recently denounced violence, immediately after which hamas declared their intent to continue waging a violent campaign [of course, hamas does not recognize the existence of israel as legitimate, so there's no reason for them to accept the road map solution anyway - which suits israel nicely, considering they won't dismantle settlements unless the violence ends]. additionally, one of the reasons palestinians resorted to violence in the first place was that they were left with no political alternative to voice their grievances because of israel's policies. as a state-in-exile with a population mostly stuck in refugee camps, it's hard to gain concessions from an occupying power - let alone one with wmd's. the idf policies only serve to preserve the status quo of mutual violence. parallel development is a pipe dream, and the supporting reasons go on and on.

other problems i have [which i won't go into, but you are welcome to email me if you reeeaaalllyyy care about my opinion] - the issue of palestinian economic sovereignty, provisional borders, a 'quartet'-brokered deal [in the face of a history of bilateral u.s.-mediated negotiations which have *always* denied the legitimacy of international involvement] and quartet-monitored progress...

ok, here's a much more articulate op-ed piece that i agree with in large part. there's so much more i want to say but i run the risk of ranting so i'll leave it at this right now.

2003-05-07T11:21:00.000-04:00

ba'ath background. if you are interested, here's an article explaining the origins of the ba'ath party and it's subsequent manipulation by certain political actors and state leaders. it's interesting to think about.

2003-05-07T07:51:00.000-04:00

oh, this is great news. so the bush corp. is letting the ba'athists return to their government positions in iraq. this is scary, not because the ba'thists in and of themselves are evil and destructive [which they are not], but because:
[a] of the hegemony they represent. the vast majority of the ba'athists are sunni, which might piss off the population's shi'a majority again, who were just a little pissed off because of the fact that they were discriminated against [so to speak]. no question that this had to do with saddam's policies, but to reinstall the institution that ran those policies without some sort of mitigating factor involved can't be good. if you know of the mitigating factor then let me know.
[b] chalabi opposes the ba'athists. this could get interesting.
right, so i obviously do not think that the ba'athists are an Evil Party. i'm just apprehensive about those who might still carry on saddam's policies, just as i'm apprehensive about those loyal to the bush corp. who might carry on his policies after we have our own regime change.

**update: edited for clarity and correctness.

2003-05-03T23:54:00.000-04:00

somewhat spiffy? as you've probably noticed [at least from that glaringly-obvious photo in the corner], i've redone some of the stuff on the site. i'll be putting more links up soon as well, but for now, i need to go to bed. suggestions or gripes? leave them as comments below.

2003-05-02T18:25:00.000-04:00

jolly green giant! scottish parliamentary elections were held yesterday, and small parties in scotland can claim a decisive victory - 6 scottish socialist party and 7 scottish green party MSPs were elected [that's up 5 and 6, respectively, from 1999]. these numbers are especially important because, although informally the parliament has worked out procedures to allow the small parties to have representation in committees and such, parties in the scottish parliament are not officially designated as 'parties' until they have at least 5 MSPs sitting. this could prove to be extremely important to both the socialists and the greens, who seek to guard their 'opposition party' status while gaining a stronger foothold in mainstream parliamentary politics. at any rate, i'm extremely happy that they have gained official party representation - especially the greens, who i feel a special affinity for and who i think could really manage to go places in postmodern politics.

[ok, so i wrote a paper on the scottish greens and did a presentation on their 2003 electoral prospects, and for some reason that makes me think i had something to do with their present electoral success. i know it doesn't, and i'm being rather silly, but hey - maybe i helped to affect someone's vote. and as we know from florida 2000, every vote does count.]

2003-05-01T17:09:00.000-04:00

historical immediacy. i find it interesting that certain people associate themselves more with their immediacy, and others associate themselves more with their past. or, to rephrase, it intrigues me that many people ascribe more privacy to their immediate lives while others would give the details of their present over their past any day. which 'person', so to speak, is more personal? in my own case, i've spent a good deal of the recent past defining myself on a relatively blank page because of university and travels - my historical past is not something i wish to separate myself from [and never could, in any case - just because a moment is dead does not mean it's forgotten], but at the very least it's privileged information for anyone not present at the time.

then again, maybe i'm limiting my perspective to personal relationships only. in a personal relationship [friendship etc.] the point is to forge some sort of emotionally symbiotic interconnection based on present situations of the persons involved. a bit hard to put into words, i know, but how about this - have you ever noticed that old friends with whom you've fallen out of touch are still good friends, but ones you might not turn to for immediate problems or advice? perhaps this is because a friendship functions within a certain temporal space [at least initially]. to become a friend, you must understand who i am at the moment. the past comes later.

i think the more interesting case, however, is at the level of professional relationship. a professional relationship is usually not emotional, though perhaps still symbiotic - the point being that professional relationships involve purpose-driven exchanges between people who fulfill certain functional conditions for each other, rather than emotional exchanges between people who aren't quite beholden to functional conditions. in this context, then, it is interesting whether people more readily give away information about their present or their past, signifying [perhaps?] whether they ascribe more personal privacy to the present or past.

for example, i was chatting with a professor the other day and he ended up telling me a good deal about his past - his travels, his family, things like that. i don't, however, have a clue about his immediate personal life. is this because he views his past as somehow disconnected from his present personhood? maybe the past is safer because it's simply that - past - and therefore not emotionally weighty or something like that. maybe we are more vulnerable when we volunteer information about what makes us who we are in the present sense - information that has the ability to change our present lives seems more consequential than information about our past [which, it can be argued, can affect the future less than the present].

on a certain level this idea abstracts and converges, but for the moment it's interesting to think about.

2003-04-30T15:40:00.000-04:00

more tenable that any other link yet. i saw this a few weeks ago on my professor's door, and finally found it online:

brilliant!

2003-04-28T03:40:00.000-04:00

woohoo!!! welcome to the second day of international compost awareness week! go out and tell all the neighbors, i'm sure they'd love to know!

:)

2003-04-23T21:38:00.000-04:00

photo update. photos from brussels and ireland are now online at my online photo album if you are interested. had to take down all of the ones from edinburgh but i figured that they've been up long enough anyway. hope you like them...

blog news. as soon as blogger fixes their issues [audience: yeah, right!] i will have additional members posting on this blog. sort of a coming-soon attraction, i suppose. will let you know when that happens.

2003-04-23T16:13:00.000-04:00

guest post...ish. lauren, in one of her comments, asks an interesting question:

can anyone tell me how scottish people are viewed in america? im interested now..or are there not enough scottish tourists to make any impact? hmmm, i bet we are all seen as whisky drinking, kilt wearing nutters! (that is the way that we are portrayed in england and they can ACTUALLY see us just by looking over the border!)

i'd like to know too!

2003-04-21T07:45:00.000-04:00

5 things i learned yesterday:
1. peach juice spilled on the carpet makes the room smell like fresh peaches... for about 5 minutes. then it smells like 'old-peach-juice-in-carpet'.
2. there are many people in this world who care much more about whether post-soviet political parties are programmatic or oppositional than i do.
3. burning incense at night makes your room smell like a fireplace in the morning.
4. when offering someone the choice between 'good' antiseptic wipes and 'really crappy' antiseptic wipes, he or she will undoubtedly choose the 'good' ones.
5. 'slap the kiwi' is *not* a euphemism for masturbate, actually.

2003-04-18T20:30:00.000-04:00

soon to be added to school curriculums everywhere. so i turned on the tv in anticipation of a movie this evening, and caught the tail-end of a gardening show, where the gardening hosts excited announced that starting this sunday, 27 april, the u.k., u.s. and canada will all be celebrating international compost awareness week.

this is most certainly NOT a joke. the composting council says so.

coming soon - rousseau on women. or maybe post-soviet political parties. i'm sure you're excited.

**update: ok so obviously THIS sunday is not the 27th. but hey, that leaves another week to get ready for the big celebration!

2003-04-17T20:27:00.000-04:00

repeat after me. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN!

2003-04-17T20:24:00.000-04:00

my eyes! g. dub makes the ugliest pin-up girl i've ever seen. [via no more mister nice blog.]

2003-04-14T22:58:00.000-04:00

right. so i know that the most interesting blogs out right now are warblogs, whether leftie or right-wing, and rest assured this blog will not be turning into that. not that i'd mind the exposure - attention is fun - but i'm not in my flat enough times out of the day to keep up, nor do i want to feel obligated to post something every day. i'd rather think for a few days and then write something somewhat profound/funny/&c.

not that i will succeed.

nietzsche on reading [reading his writing, that is]. i suppose this has something to do with reading weblogs, but who knows. maybe if nietzsche has a weblog it would. [aside: what if nietzsche had a weblog? would it be written in a 'post'-type format, which is suprisingly close to the aphorism, or would nietzsche be compelled to share his thoughts in an alternate format? i wonder what the hell he'd have to say on it...] anyway, thought i'd post it for shits and giggles, if anyone reads it and feels like saying something about it feel free to do so, this is my thing so i love chatting about it...

nietzsche on 'ruminative' reading
'ruminating' reading, if you will, has an element of true pondering and reflecting upon the text at hand, and of course this reflection takes a new direction when the object is nietzsche's writings. he says numerous times - in _beyond good and evil_, _gay science_, and elsewhere - that he is intentionally writing to be difficult to understand. i take this to mean something fairly straightforward - a 'true' or deeper understanding of the profundity of nietzsche's writings requires a slow, reflective, and deliberate approach to reading (as opposed to, for example, modern man's emphasis on efficiency and productivity, even in reading). and, what's more, in beyond good and evil (sec. 192) he writes that "to hear something new is hard and painful for the ear" and goes on to apply this to reading. this, i think, is illuminative concerning questions about profound wounding and profound delight. of course nietzsche believes, and i believe him as well, that his writings are significantly new and therefore quite destructive to modern man's (i.e. the herd man's) perspective. modern man has the tendency to apply things to his knowledge in such a way as to categorize them (think efficiency again). modern man is also quite comfortable in his mental world of easy categories and little discomfort. nietzsche adds to this that modern man never truly *understands* what he reads because of these tendencies. a reader who is able to honestly 'read' his writings will be a reader who is also undoubtedly shocked and hurt by what nietzsche has to say. this same reader, however, according to nietzsche, will also realize what vast possibility for "profound delight" there is out in the world. this idea reminds us of what nietzsche says over and over again - that experiencing profound suffering is necessary in order to experience profound delight and joy in the world.

2003-04-11T17:25:00.000-04:00

this is great. the 20.15pm [bst] "latest from the wires" listing at washingtonpost.com:

Coalition Seeks to Handle Chaos in Iraq (AP, April 11, 2003; 5:08 PM)
Weapons Cache for Saddam's Son Odai Found (AP, April 11, 2003; 5:03 PM)
Yemenis Hunt for USS Cole Case Suspects (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:56 PM)
Iraqis Who Fled Fighting May Be Near Iran (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:55 PM)
Quick Questions and Answers on the War (AP, April 11, 2003; 5:02 PM)
U.S.-Led Forces Expand Control Over Iraq (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:59 PM)
Yemenis Hunt for USS Cole Case Suspects (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:56 PM)
Yemenis Hunt for USS Cole Case Suspects (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:56 PM)
Iraqis Who Fled Fighting May Be Near Iran (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:55 PM)
N. Iraqi City of Mosul Sees Looting Chaos (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:42 PM)
N. Iraqi City of Mosul Sees Looting Chaos (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:42 PM)
Hat Band From Titanic Sells for $53,000 (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:44 PM)
N. Iraqi City of Mosul Sees Looting Chaos (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:42 PM)
Baghdad Suffering Endures Amid War's Fate (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:37 PM)
Baghdad Suffering Endures Amid War's Fate (AP, April 11, 2003; 4:38 PM)

this strikes me as oddly funny.

2003-04-11T15:01:00.000-04:00

statement.

boo-yah.

2003-04-11T14:31:00.000-04:00

language. i'm very nearly finished with one essay, so i figured i'd procrastinate for a little bit. i'm currently reading me talk pretty one day by david sedaris [think of an older, more homosexual, less inclined-to-use-the-novel-form dave eggers], who has something interesting to say about americans that i *completely* agree with:

It's something I hadn't noticed until leaving home, but we are a loud people. The trumpeting elephants of the human race. Questions, observations, the locations of blisters and rashes - everything is delivered as though it were an announcement.

i moan and complain about americans constantly, and this is part of the reason. when i got to scotland this revelation hit me, and slapped me in the face once again when i went to russia. don't get me wrong - i'm not renouncing my american citizenship, and there are PLENTY of things that america has gotten right. it's just that most of the americans i notice abroad - probably due to their loud voices, though they most likely represent the minority of american travellers - don't seem to be able to handle themselves in a setting where they aren't surrounded by their fellow nationals. it's not about the 'when in rome' malarky: there's no need to change your entire existence to match the host culture, only a sensitivity to that culture such that you don't stick out like a sore thumb. in truth, it's not even about being a sore thumb. just a little blending of self and surroundings is all.

speaking of language, right now i'm listening to a danish classical radio webcast. every so often, as is normal with radio shows, the hosts will speak about one thing or another between pieces. when this happens, i feel like the swedish chef is speaking right to me though the computer [i know i'm being extremely generalistic about foreign languages coming from the general north europe-scandinavia area, but i must confess i'd never be able to tell the difference in the first place]. definitely odd. to add to that oddness, the piece - 'piece' - playing right now is this all-strings composition, i suppose it's supposed to be one of those musical stories with characters and a plot and such, and it seems to like that tonal range right below 'dog-whistle'. i'm trying to wait it out in the hopes that it will be short and i'll be able to concentrate once again on finishing up my essay without musical knives piercing through my brain, but i feel like i want to rip my ears off right now.

2003-04-11T11:21:00.000-04:00

ok ok, one post and i'll get to work on the essays. via the insolvent republic of blogistan, secretary donald "dr. ruth" rumsfeld:

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: My husband and I have an active love life, and I'm generally satisfied, but sometimes I'd like him to go "down there." —Kate Waterman, Enid, Oklahoma

Secretary Rumsfeld: Down where? I'm here to answer legitimate questions about sex in a frank and candid way, but I'm not doing this just to waste my time. Do you mean your belly button? Your knees? Your toes? Boca Raton? Argentina?

more.

p.s.: should be adding some changes to the site when i get the chance - like blogs i read [especially for counterbiased war info], maybe a bio or something, and links to posts from the past that you might still be interested in. it's all a secret plot to increase readership. we'll see if it works...

2003-04-06T21:35:00.000-04:00

i'm always the last to know. wil wheaton, who played wesley in a few seasons of star trek: the next generation, has a weblog. go figure.

actually, it's not bad. heh.

2003-04-06T18:25:00.000-04:00

nyah nyah. even the u.s. military dolphin thinks this war is a bad idea. who said animals have no formal conscious mind?

**update: he came back. complete with shark attack scars. i bet he, peace-loving dolphin that he is, tried to defect, and the sharks [read: hawks] just wouldn't hear of it.

2003-04-03T16:04:00.000-05:00

what in the...? i know it's already posted on dave barry's site, but i had to do it justice as well:

want to carry your dog too? find out how here.

2003-04-01T15:23:00.000-05:00

I WIN! I TOTALLY WIN!!! guess who made it onto dave barry's webpage? ME!!! that's who! check out the reference here. and it's only the second time i've tried!

i am the coolest person on the planet. and no, this is not an april fool's day joke.

**update - the archive appears not to be working, so go to dave's webpage [davebarry.blogspot.com] and look for the entries for april 1

2003-03-31T17:53:00.000-05:00

euphemisms. today i took a gander at the white house's webpage for kids. good to know that our nation's youth is being indoctrinated before they can say the words 'humanitarian aid'. kinda evokes lovely images of komsomol or hitler jugend.

[i wonder how many hits the above will bring this website. i've already had a few hits from a government server, according to the site meter. maybe next the cia will be knocking on my door.]

2003-03-28T12:21:00.000-05:00

hopeless aspirations. i have recurring dreams, some of them real enough to get me thinking, about my weblog turning into one of those hipster blogs that everyone links to and cites in writing opinion posts, &c. i think the problem, though, is that i have neither the time, nor the energy, not to mention the resources to devote my entire waking life to reading online news/opinion and commenting on it. also, i'm loathe to have my blog turn into a page of links, which is what some have become for all intents and purposes. realistically speaking, i've got 3 weeks to write 3 essays and a fourth due a few weeks after that and i punish myself for my sloth and procrastination by banishing all leisure reading and writing [save the odd blog update] until the essays are at least near completion. i know that there are millions more stressed out that i am - one of whom reads this little forum on a regular basis - but hey i might as well allow myself to be stressed out by the little things while i can still pay attention to them. anyway, that's not the point - the point is that i'm resigned to my web-publishing fate of small readership and no hipster status. besides, that way i don't have to publish the same earth-shattering opinion several times a day in different formats.

a warmonger explains war to a peacenik - brilliant.

have also taken to reading this modern world by tom tomorrow [a.k.a. dan perkins] and am now thoroughly embroiled in the soap opera that is a political cartoonist's life. never knew the field could be so fraternal - tom's got photos on his site where you can see the exciting adventures of not only himself but also mike lukovich the political cartoonist and dave barry the humor columnist, two of my favorite satirists. check out ted rall, if you are interested - everything he does is brilliant.

also check out the amazing truth x-ray vision website. there used to be an exxon logo in the upper left corner - wonder if the corporate thugs made the webowner remove it?

oh, right, my adventures. belfast is small and quiet - shocker, i know, to those who think it's teeming with violence. the city center is quiet nice though and has a huge fuck-off tv screen in the middle of a square, i suppose for rush-hour traffic to view when the going gets tough. dublin was great fun for st. patrick's day, though people aren't lying when they moan about how expensive it is. the visit with mom and my grandparents was wonderful, really nice to see family again. i've got 6 exposures left on my roll of film and then hopefully i'll be sending them all off to be developed, so there might be an influx of brussels, belfast, dublin and london on my photo album - if i can figure out how to pay for the development, that is.

i should really get to work on those essays.

2003-03-23T01:04:00.000-05:00

lack of posts update. sorry [to the 2 people who read this] that i haven't posted in a bit - family is here and i've had no time! rest assured, more mindless drivel after tuesday...

2003-03-12T15:10:00.000-05:00

more milestones. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! wow, half a century. wish i was there to celebrate with you.

i love you.

[awww ain't it mushy :)]

2003-03-11T12:47:00.000-05:00

a few minor things to complain about. don't get me wrong, i'm on a bit of a high now that classes are officially over for me until april 15 [edinburgh spring break rocks the party!], but there are a few things i observed today that got my brain a'working again.

firstly [and least annoyingly] - i went today to the physiotherapist for my knee, upon which i feel incredibly hard on the black ice in russia evidently not only spraining my medial collateral ligament [which has since nearly completely healed] but also obliterating the nerve-covered fat pad underneath my lower patella. this nerve damage is also the cause of the residual numbness, burning and pins'n'needles i keep feeling every now and then in my knee as a whole, and the numbness i perpetually feel in a portion of my calf muscle. so, while my knee is no longer causing me excessive pain when i kneel or press on the patellar tendon, i definitely still have minor issues with it. my question is, then, why is the elevator out-of-order for a 5th floor physiotherapy unit? what if i hadn't been able to climb stairs, and what about those people needing examination who most definitely cannot?

second - i've really begun to hate 'defaulters' - by that i mean people who argue a certain point because it's their default, like feminism or anti-war or socialism or what have you. they think it's trendy or socially acceptable or that it makes them more interesting in a certain sense, and because of this they think that are [a] right and only right and as such are [b] supposed to argue with any position taken by another person, even if that position is nearly the same as that of the defaulter. i bring this issue up because i've been dealing with an american socialist/feminist/anti-war/plight of the poor by default girl in one of my classes now since january and today she finally pissed me off to the point of verbal action. her argument was something about representation in elected bodies and how single homeless mothers need a voice. i said something about how single homeless mothers don't vote and any 'voice' they have will necessarily be forced upon them - i wasn't arguing with her per se, i agree with some of her points, but her reasoning was completely faulty because of her desire to constantly win - and she responded with some sort of claim that i was a woman-hater and an elitist [which i won't deny in certain contexts - nietzscheans are elitists by definition] who wanted to deny all sorts of population sectors from political action. efforts to clarify my point in simpler terms for her failed, as she stuffed my mouth full of things i hadn't said, and so i gave up on the pretext that i wouldn't argue with someone who wanted to argue for me. fucking defaulter.

other than that, the week is passing quickly as the '9/4 darroch court belfast adventure' looms on the horizon!

mind over money bent over backwards
light up my life like a very last cigarette
[turin brakes, "mind over money"]

2003-03-10T17:22:00.000-05:00

interspecies relationships. it appears that ostriches have taken to flirting with farmers. just thought everyone should know.

does this count as bestiality? or maybe 'human-iality'?

2003-03-10T09:35:00.000-05:00

whooping, hollering, and general gaiety. i am now a veritable middle eastern history goddess! class exam done and done. i think i was lucky - as i was reviewing with a friend yesterday, it seemed like i was studying too much, but i managed to predict exactly 3 of 4 questions i answered and nearly predict the 4th. and orientalism was on there - happy happy joy joy! theory meets history!

yes, yes, the protest. so last wednesday lauren and i decided we would go check out this anti-war protest-type thingy happening in one of the squares near the university, apparently to march down to the scottish parliament buildings. we were initially going to people-watch and then leave to get some studying done. at some point a cop came around telling everyone to get a move on as traffic had been stopped to allow for the marchers and so the march should get underway, and so we decided pretty much to leave at this point. however, as we attempted to walk out of the square the marchers were also attempting to walk out of the square, and we found ourselves walking along with the marchers. at this point we realize that we've just joined a protest march down to the royal mile and can't leave for fear of desertion. what a bunch of crap protesters we are! the only thing that would have made us worse is if we had shouted out pro-war stuff in the midst of it. the entire time i was giggling to myself, to the consternation of lauren who could not see what i found so funny, perhaps because it was a visual thing - i just kept getting this picture in my head of the two of us wandering into a whole bunch of marching people and 'finding' ourselves in the midst of a march, and joining it to boot. ok, maybe it really is only funny to me. we were also 'inspected' by a 'weapons inspector' for nukes, bio and chem weapons [sounds dirty but it really wasn't i swear - just hilarious]. in the end we had to leave during the scottish socialist party msp's speech, but we've heard it all before so we didn't miss much.

ta-da!

you've tried me out for now
don't kill what's left off
you never know it's there
i tried to argue
but now your skin is bare
and I could try to make you mine
but I haven't got the time
to waste it all
on someone like you
[electric soft parade - "holes in the wall"]

2003-03-07T10:57:00.000-05:00

::chortle chortle:: ok, i promised the protest story, and i won't back down on my word, but i'm still attempting to become a font of history knowledge, so in the meantime, read these captions added to government illustrations of how-to situations in the event of a terrorist/nuclear/chemical/biological attack. be warned: they are of a slightly hilarious nature.

2003-03-06T19:01:00.000-05:00

we are so cool. lauren is brilliant for coming up with this and we are all cool for having convenient names. not that i am that into LOTR [lord of the rings to the uninitiated [oh god, i can't believe i just did that]] but lauren, anna and i have the best character names:

laurenlas [legolas]
annagorn [aragorn]
kimli [gimli].

man, do we rock ruff 'n' stuff with our afro puffs or what?

[more on the protest lauren and i just happened to join later, as i am attempting to become master historian of the modern middle east at the moment.]

2003-03-01T22:25:00.000-05:00

milestones. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAT!!!

hooray! i'd buy you a drink, but since i'm not there, i'll just drink one for you instead :)

cheers!

2003-02-27T17:41:00.000-05:00

i have no more excuses. i've just officially been a slacker since i got back from brussels. so, without further ado, 'kim-and-louise's spectacular expedition to brussels':

first of all, if you get a chance to go to brussels, you most definitely should. the people are amazing - my french was definitely good enough to get by [better than i thought it would be, even] and the belgians appreciated every word i spoke. they understood that i was trying to work on my french, and were just lovely at helping me out. nevertheless, i would spout out some long phrase in french and they would answer me in english. so i got in the habit of asking them to speak french to me unless i needed english, and they got in the habit of asking me if i had understood what they had said before automatically speaking english - it was a nice, symbiotic relationship.

as far as sightseeing is concerned, brussels is, to me, the quintessential european city. ok, it's not like i've been anywhere else in europe [and while st. pete technically counts, somehow it just doesn't [don't kill me, kat!]] but it seems to me that places like paris, vienna, berlin and such feel specifically parisian or french or austrian or german, and brussels felt like a representative of all those cities and more. could, of course, be the location of the eu institutions and nato and such, but still, it didn't strike me as particularly belgian, just european. and i like that, especially not having been to anywhere else in europe.

so, a day-by-day play-by-play?
wednesday.
we got in at about 9pm or so, got ourselves sorted at the hostel [top bunks goddamnit], and by the time we were finished it was 930 and we were starving. we decided to look for a small, inexpensive pub or some such food source to no avail. along the way we pass a yugoslavian-croatian restaurant [go world politics!] with a smoking man outside beckoning us - "bonsoir, les filles...". since we were both leery of older men who try to entice us into places, we walked on, and found a small greek pubbish-restaurant to eat in. we were served cokes and then promptly served the bill, and it was about then that we realized we were not, in fact, going to order food. apparently we were at the greek mafia hangout in brussels. the entire restaurant patronage seemed to consist of one large greek family, all eating huge plates of wonderful-looking food, and all staring at us as if we had slugs dropping out of our nostrils. so we left. the yugoslavian-croatian place ended up being absolutely wonderful, not that expensive, and quite friendly. and we eventually figured out what to do with the plate of cabbage.
thursday.
thursday we went and saw all of the sights around the city centre - the grand-place, manneken pis [pronounced 'piss', not 'pee', though both are quite appropriate], la cathedrale de saint-michel et gudule, the eu institutions and buildings, le parc en centenaire and the BIG ARCHES [you will see pictures of all of these things shortly, when i finish my next roll of film - update of course when it happens], etc and so on. we went to a smart little place called 'le gout des autres' - roughly translated to 'the taste of others' or 'the alternative taste' - and had a very cheap, very good lunch served by a very friendly waitress. we also went shopping on the brussels high street, paid 30 euro cents to use a toilet, and ate dinner at the grand-place at night [sooo beautifully lit up!]. i also had brussels mussels. or, according to us while we were there, 'bruscles muscles', hard 'c'. the only annoying bit of the day was having to change hostel rooms after the hostel staff fucked up. but louise got a bottom bunk!
friday.
friday was a bit more sightseeing. we went to the parc de bruxelles - where the real blair witch apparently practices her wood-tying skills - and made our way to la basilisque du sacre coeur, where you pay 2 euros to go to the very top of the basilica and see an unbelievable panoramic view of brussels. at this point we were hungry, and decided to take the metro to the gare du centrale [central train station] and grab some food. in some sort of ironic twist of fate, just as we were wondering if we'd recognize the area around the metro station exit, we emerge from underground and see le gout des autres across the street! so of course we had to eat there again. the rest of the day was filled with a horrendous hop-on-hop-off bus tour [which was neither hop-on nor hop-off - the only stop it made was the original boarding stop, and lucky for us the english headphones cut out for half the tour] and a trip to la place du sablon, a quite posh area filled with expensive shops and antiques boutiques. but we bought chocolate [finally!] and had dinner outside of the opera house, so not entirely a wasted afternoon. once again we switched hostel rooms [2 bottom bunks! hooray!].
saturday.
we had a few hours before we had to make our way to charleroi to catch our flight, so we went walking down a place we hadn't been. of course, at this time we realize that we had been taking the metro for the past 2 days to precisely the places we had just walked to in 10 minutes. also, we realized that there was a quite thriving red light district about 10 minutes away as well. not much else on this day, just back to scotland!

well i certainly think that's more than enough to read [but if you'd like more, then check out kat's webpage for a comprehensive essay matching songs to life-men]. if i've forgotten anything, i'll post it later... and pictures soon!

oh yeah, and i'd like to say hello to my pilf-mmehsg, who i am sure is, at this very moment, wondering if i would like to say hello to him.

2003-02-20T11:01:00.000-05:00

bonjour! hello from brussels! note to anyone wanting to use an internet cafe in brussels - 'azerty' keyboards suck. it took me five minutes to type that.

2003-02-18T21:27:00.000-05:00

hooray! off to brussels, belgium tomorrow for a short holiday! the plan is to eat lots of belgian chocolate, drink lots of belgian beer, and take pictures of everything, so expect more photos [of chocolate-covered drunken brussels adventures] online in a couple of weeks. hopefully i'll also have some good stories to tell!

so my latest academically-peripheral obsession is the middle east situation, which of course encompasses the impending american imperialist conquest of iraq but more importantly the palestinian crisis which the media seems to have all but forgotten about these days [perhaps because of the almost comical bias towards israel?]. yes, i am obviously a member of the pro-palestinian camp - which of course is NOT to say i support guerilla warfare in any way whatsoever [it's just that i can understand the logic of it - it speaks volumes about the severly depleted political resources of the palestinian governing structure and the international silence which greets them in almost every situation]. i'm not going to go into specifics concerning why i think ariel sharon is an evil evil war criminal, or what the israelis have done to piss me off, since sophisticated information is readily available from amnesty int'l and human rights watch. these two organizations seem to me to be the most archimedean of any of the watchdog groups, and if you are looking for arguments concerning atrocities committed by palestinians you will most certainly find them. i'm also not going to bore you with my long, drawn-out treatise on why i support palestinians - suffice it to say that [a] as i said above, it appears to me that the palestinians have no other options and so their behavior is to an extent understandable, and [b] israel is a democratic state and needs to act like one - as opposed to the palestinians, who need to act like human beings but of course in no way whatsoever have anything close to a state.

concerning the forthcoming war on iraq: france rocks the party that rocks the body. you can fill in the rest, or email me if you really care about what i think.

i suppose i should update you on domestic matters as well. world war three has been averted as sam agreed to a full withdrawal - she moved out a couple of weeks ago. the tension in the flat has eased substantially, and is now back to normal, if not slightly noisier in the kitchen. the reality of life after undergraduate studies still has not fully settled in my brain, and i am perpetually in a state of future-denial. i'm still applying to graduate school at ucl and lse, but unfortunately my references have not yet arrived from the states and the applications are patiently waiting on my bookshelf. if this falls through, i'll need someone to employ me - as i keep on about, but have not as of yet made an effort to move towards. maybe there are some virtues to shock therapy after all... also, my new addictions: crumpets [38p for 12!], ikea meatballs, juicy pear jelly bellies, and diluting high juice.

wish there was more exciting news from the homefront to relate. maybe next time...

addendum: in a cruel twist of fate at the hands of my good friend irony, i've had "grand old flag" stuck in my head for the past couple of days. i hate subconscious memory intake.

2003-02-15T04:47:00.000-05:00

and so it begins. belgium is the first country to finally declare out loud what everyone knows silently. sharon is a war criminal, and he will see his day in court. it's about time we as a global community had a permanent record of this fact.

2003-02-12T22:00:00.000-05:00

songs i cannot get out of my head, no matter how hard i try.
keep me a secret
lock up all your doors
i'll keep you out of my dreams
just you keep me out of yours
***
i can't believe that you put on a sleeve when you cryyyyyy......
......stop living the liiieeeiiiieiiee-ieiiieieiieiie-ieiieeieeiieiie
***
tear don't you fall!
eye don't you cry!

very sad. very pathetic. very annoying.

alternatively. it seems that the study abroad credit situation has finally resolved itself and i am in no danger of repaying my financial aid. hooray! and sometime in the next week [i'm seriously hoping in the next week] i'll be sending off applications to grad school in london. woo! now all i need is a back-up plan. who wants to employ me?

2003-02-07T21:05:00.000-05:00

the depths of destitution. while i'm looking for a job, i'm not sure that a lack of pocket change would ever cause me to stoop to this level.

2003-02-07T21:00:00.000-05:00

life gets better every day. i feel even more distractions coming on.

2003-02-07T08:39:00.000-05:00

my 10 seconds of fame. so wednesday night anna, lauren, jen [and her 3 roommates] and i go to 'swan lake' at the playhouse [which was beautiful except for 2 things: 1 - one of the male dancers could not stick a landing to save his life, and 2 - the female dancers needed to work out their pointe shoes a bit more, definitely a herd of cattle]. we leave, decide we are hungry, and attempt to find a suitable cafe or deli for a post-ballet snack. so we decide on a chip shop. walking up and down the royal mile, looking for this chip shop that devota frequents, we spot a group of young-ish guys with a television camera, and of course eventually walk by them. conversation ensues, roughly amounting to this:

a camera guy: ladies! ladies! can you spare about 10 seconds of your time? we are doing a film-class-thing and you can help us in 10 seconds.
lauren and anna: right, kim, go ahead.
me: .....ok. do you take non-scottish people?
a camera guy: oooh, international! of course!
me: right. what do i have to do?
a camera guy: well, i'm going to ask you a question, and...damn...i can't find the answer...anyway, i know what the answer is. i'm going to ask you, "do you speak english?", and you answer-
me: "yes?"
a camera guy: ...you say, "no, i speak body language." easy!
me: um, right. ok.
guy behind camera: and five! four! three!....
me: i swear to god if this shows up in a diarrhea commercial, i'm coming after you...
guy in front of camera: let me just ask you a question - do you speak english?
me: no, i speak body language.
collective camera guys: no one gets the joke but us!
collective post-ballet girls: that's because it isn't funny.

coming to a diarrhea commerical near you.

2003-02-02T11:40:00.000-05:00

c'est magique! dunno why the i put the french there. anyway, tried to put up a picture of my flatmates and me, but unfortunately it looks like you'll just have to go to my online photo album and check it out.

exciting news - possibility of graduate school in london! more info when i get things sorted...

very short but nothing really lengthy to say. and besides, we should all be on the internet trying to figure out what has happened with the columbia. right? right?!?!

2003-01-29T17:11:00.000-05:00

finally. [and briefly.] blogger's server has been down apparently most of the day. but now i'm back!

pictures of stirling are up on my online photo album, complete and with descriptions. also, if anyone has aol instant messenger [piece of crap that it is] i have found a way around the proxy nazis and am now online again! i'm screenname "greenshade08" [zero-eight] if you're interested.

boring post, i know...

everyone's a voyeur
and they're watching me watch them watch me right now
[modest mouse, "paper thin walls"]

2003-01-27T21:17:00.000-05:00

poo. apparently the msn server has gotten caught up in the code red internet worm fiasco, and i'm having slight difficulties uploading my photos from stirling. the album is all there, ready to go, but completely empty. hopefully in the next couple of days...

found out why the swat team surrounded my flat building last night - a student had bought an airgun and apparently was waving it around in a threatening manner. there are different accounts of what actually happened - some say he waved it around at a police car, others say a policeman saw him in a flat waving it around there - but it was kinda cool to watch the press and journalists waiting for the swat team to emerge from the building [only, of course, to realize that the student had been arrested and taken out prior to their arrival]. we here were thinking some sort of terrorist situation or something like that but alas, nothing that exciting.

oh who am i kidding. i would've shit a brick in my pants if something terrible like that had actually been happening.

in other news - found out today that americans may be able to get funding quite easily for english schools [as opposed to the situation in scotland]. doubly good news, considering the graduate schools i would consider in britain are almost all in england! it's an option i might just have to look into...

finally: not that i watched it, but hooray for tampa bay finally proving to the american football fanbase that it actually can play a real game of football. bravo, buccaneers!

ps - does anyone know if foucault's theory of power/knowledge relationships allows for the existence of resistance against oppression? i need to win an argument i'm having, and you could be the lucky person to help me!

oooooooohhhhh
i'm a tiger
[eddie izzard, "the tiger playing a banjo song"]

2003-01-25T23:35:00.000-05:00

clarification.
why i support flag burning.
[*]there is only one solid reason in my mind as to why people are against burning the american flag. ok, there are those who simply do not support burning anything, and i suppose if they are going to make a blanket anti-burning statement then flags will be included in that. notwithstanding that argument, however, there seems to be only one reason: burning the flag dishonors the flag, therefore dishonoring the united states. and dishonoring the united states is a bad thing.
[*]first of all, the flag, in and of itself, is a simple piece of fabric. any symbolism attached to it is a pure human construct. the essence of a flag is not its inherent american-ness - it is simply the fabric it is made of. burning a piece of fabric is not akin to burning the united states. what's more, if we are allowed to attach a symbol as grandiose as 'the essence of american life' to the flag, then we sure as hell can deconstruct that symbol, or express distate at american life in general, by burning away the flag. free speech is not a form of birth control - if we are going to claim it as a principle of american civil society, then we are going to claim it unconditionally.
[*]more foundationally, dishonoring the united states is only a bad thing if the definition of a 'good american' is one who never questions or criticizes the states, and moreover, if a 'good american' is something to be aspired to. the idea of honoring one's state, to me, is a dubious one, given that [a] we've constructed the notion of 'state' ourselves, and [b] we seem to forget that it is ourselves who actually make up the state. honoring a state implies that there is some sort of essence of state floating about somewhere. and what is a 'good american', by the way? if a good american adheres to the founding principles of the united states, and if one of those principles is freedom of speech, then he or she should be critical of the state as a way of attempting to better it. dissent can only add to the range of opinion. why, again, are we forced to be good americans in the first place? i'll burn a flag to that.
why i am an atheist.
[*]simply put, a supreme being of any kind does not exist. the reality that exists around us is a socially constructed reality, and the notion of god is a socially constructed one. there is no such thing as an 'essence' that stands at an archimedean point outside of this world or any other. even if there were, we would have absolutely no way of knowing because of our inability to access that type of 'truthful' [if we can even use that word] knowledge outside of pure belief and speculation.
[*]a more concrete argument as to why i am not christian or jewish [or even muslim]: take the bible. written very long after even the last historical events occurred. yes, some of the events are historically accurate - but there is a difference between historical accuracy and absolute truth. let's not forget the number one problem - the bible was written by men. it is speculation. not one of the writers [and of course there were many] actually witnessed any of the events written about, much less has the authority to quote anyone directly. i have no problem with the bible as a metaphor, as inspiration, as a story with deeper meanings - but if this is acknowledged then at the same time it must be acknowledged that the bible was written by men with the intention of being interpreted as a story with multiple meanings rather than as a spiritual authority. to accord it divine inspiration is to ignore its own historical truth.
[*]in the end, i can't argue with faith - argument is rational dialogue, and faith is inherently irrational. there's no way for the two to speak to each other. but i can argue with blind belief in a social construct.
why i do not support the united states military.
[*]ok, that's a bit unfair. the military has done some wonderful, courageous, awe-inspiring things, and national defense on the whole is a desirable thing. but really now - the military is not the defender of the freedom, nor the guarantor of the constitution. it is not the soldier who provides constitutional stability. a soldier is a mercenary, a paid war machine. there are idealists [and ideologues] in the military, as with all professions - but it is not the soldier who is directly responsible for the provision of constitutional freedoms to the citizens of the united states.
[*]wake up! the constitution, and the politics surrounding it, are the real guarantors of the american version of freedom. freedom of speech exists because the constitution declares it necessary and the court system constantly defines and reaffirms this declaration. americans are free to travel because the constitution and lawmakers have decided that it is appropriate and acceptable. soldiers are the practical mechanism for national defense, and so they are responsible for the continued physical existence of the united states. without them the american type of freedom wouldn't exist, but then again, neither would we. if you want to be reverent of soldiers for some reason, be reverent for their desire to die in order for you to survive - but beyond that they can do nothing. the survival of constitutional freedoms is dependent upon the existence of politics and those willing to participate within the public sphere.
[*]one last thing - the military right now is a puppet to dubya's war strategies. this is nothing new. the military is always a puppet to the president's foreign missions. however, since i *do not* in any way support generalissimo bush, i also do not support his appointments to key decision-making positions within the military leadership. there's your non-theoretical argument.

i thought it necessary to put these on the table so as to back up and enable future bitching sessions.

and please don't stick thy servants, lord,
in a rotissomat.
[monty python, "o lord please don't burn us"]

2003-01-25T22:45:00.000-05:00

stirling. as i mentioned below, i went to stirling on thursday with lauren and her scottish history society friends. we visited stirling castle, the holy rude church and the [?] hospital, the 15th century stirling bridge and the statue of robert bruce on "the site of the battle of bannockburn" [which actually occurred in a different spot underneath a new housing development]. after we left michael lynch convinced the bus driver to take us to linlithgow to see the palace and church where mary queen of scots was baptized, and ended up taking the driver into a blind alleyway. i never cease to be amazed by the skill of scottish busdrivers. anyway, some observations:
[1] reformation-era scottish rulers built ugly-colored castles. the castle at stirling [incidentally, a point at which you can see both the lowlands and the highlands on the horizon] was built as a sort of display of grandeur, and to accentuate this the builders used an ochre wash on the walls of the great hall. this turns out to be a really ugly cross between gold and orange. maybe eventually it will wear a bit.
[2] scottish history is really cool. michael lynch, who i mentioned is a hot shot of scottish history, had the best stories to tell us about the building of the castle and the history that went on there. i'm not a huge premodern history fan but i was certainly enraptured. also, professor lynch puts on no pretenses, volunteered his time to act as tour guide on the trip, and even paid the same 5GBP that everyone else paid. what a guy!
[3] i have now seen several things in person that i had not seen save for tv: snow-capped mountains, a highland hairy cow, and sheep. lots and lots of sheep. of course, i saw sheep on the way to glasgow but i still wanted to mention it. just to let you know, i love sheep. they are my new favorite farm animal [not sure i had an old favorite] and i really want to hug them.

pictures of stirling and linlithgow will be up in the next few days or so. will post it when it happens.

2003-01-25T15:20:00.000-05:00

happy burns night! my flat is so cool. we decided to celebrate robert burns night - a traditional scottish holiday celebrating the life of rabbie burns, or robert burns, a very famous scottish poet [think: auld lang syne] who managed to bridge the gap between social classes at a time when scotland was resistant to such movements. so we went out and got ourselves haggis, neeps, and tatties - traditional scottish burns night fare - to honor him properly. what are haggis, neeps and tatties, you ask? well, certainly not nipples and titties as my poor ignorant self once believed. ok, here's the story.

the first time i ate in a pub in edinburgh, i was alone, and had to figure out food terminology without the benefit of a translator. i knew vaguely what haggis was - at least i knew it was encased in a sheep's stomach membrane - and so i figured, if haggis is that gross, then surely neeps and tatties, served with the haggis, must equal its disgustingness. 'neeps' sounds like a diminutive of 'nipples', and 'tatties' of 'titties', so it all made perfect sense to me!

right. come to find out, haggis really isn't all that gross [either the membrane comes off or disintegrates], and neeps and tatties simply mean turnip and potatoes. anyway, we bought and cooked all of this, along with some scottish oat cakes and irn bru [a really odd soda] and had ourselves a proper burns night feast. i am now officially scottish!

by the way: more to come on yesterday's trip to stirling - which was wonderful - but just a quick note to substantiate my new nationality. michael lynch, one of the foremost scholars of scottish history, could not distinguish my accent from a scottish one! hooray! i win!

2003-01-23T18:14:00.000-05:00

very quickly. this article in the post articulates the views of my post below. vindication...

ps - today i stabbed myself by dropping a steak knife on my foot! hooray for kitchen safety!

2003-01-23T04:15:00.000-05:00

more thicko dafties in the news. france and germany have declared their committment to what some journalists are calling "defying the united states" on its impending war on iraq by blocking a potential declaration of alliance between NATO and america on the war effort. i have problems with the term "defy" as it is, but the donald rumsfeld excerpts in this article from the washington post are even better.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that the position of France and Germany was a "problem," but played it down, calling the two countries "old Europe." Addressing foreign journalists at the National Press Club in Washington, he noted NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe and said that "vast numbers" of European countries "are not with France and Germany on this, they're with the United States."

[a] "old europe"? ok, so germany and france have been a part of europe since, well, since the time of their inception. they are, after all, located there. also, the alliance between them is a fairly new thing - they are only now celebrating the 40th anniversary of their treaty of friendship. that makes them fairly up-to-date, i suppose. third, this "old europe" term implies a corresponding "new europe" that is more friendly to american war intentions. the only states i can think of that fulfill fit this definition are the eastern european former soviet bloc states [and he does then indeed mention these states], and it's no wonder that they ally themselves with the united states, seeing as much of their protection/financing originates there.
[b] "vast numbers"? right. europe is not peppered with hundreds of countries. NATO itself is comprised of only 19 member nations. 19!!! the member nations are: belgium, canada, czech republic, denmark, france, germany, greece, hungary, iceland, italy, luxembourg, netherlands, norway, poland, portugal, spain, turkey, united kingdom, united states. ok, so out of the 18 non-us states only 3 are eastern european former soviet bloc states, with turkey as the fourth non-western european state. i don't think 4 out of 18 is a great number. even if we grant that rumsfeld meant both eastern and western support in his "vast numbers" of states, 18 is not a "vast" number on the whole. perhaps he was referring to the 7 countries invited to become NATO members: bulgaria, estonia, latvia, lithuania, romania, slovakia and slovenia. problem is, last time i checked these countries weren't yet full NATO members.

really now. what was he thinking?

i think you like to be the victim, think you like to be in pain
i think you make yourself a victim, almost every single day
[everclear, "everything to everyone"]

2003-01-19T22:07:00.000-05:00

ominousness. world war three is about to start. right here at flat 4, 9 darroch court. sparks should start a-flyin shortly, and the bombs will be a-droppin soon thereafter. more updates as things pro[re-]gress.

is it you or your parents in this income tax bracket?
[cake, "rock'n'roll lifestyle"]

2003-01-13T20:01:00.000-05:00

quick and easy, since i'm tired as... something... black and white pictures are now online in my photo album [link to the right, under the heading "links"]. i'm actually quite proud of these, and i have no idea how i managed to take them. anyway, enjoy!

i wanted to be with you alone
and talk about the weather
but traditions I can trace against the child in your face
won't escape my attention
[tears for fears, "head over heels"]

2003-01-10T12:17:00.000-05:00

apparently the package nazis have confiscated my package. in fact, i think it's more appropriate to view these package thieves as the true terrorists, and as such we must wage war against them. it's time to bring in the allied forces against this package-stealing axis of evil. i've already instituted an executive policy by which any so-called perpetrator accused of participating in or aiding in package thievery will be subject to indefinite incarceration without attorney assistance, preferably on a warship at norfolk.

and your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder
and your dad would throw the garbage all across the floor
as we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for
[neutral milk hotel, "the king of carrot flowers pt. 1"]

2003-01-06T05:37:00.000-05:00

i'd like to say that i've been busy. but in truth, i've just been slacking. enjoying my holiday break, if you will. damnit. this is why i haven't updated in a near-catastrophic week. but here i am, with 30 min to go before class, ready to tell all!

so, russia. kat's site [link in the post below] really does have some of the great [and not-so-great] moments we had there. a quick run down: i stayed at her host house, where i experienced the wonders of russian food [amazing stuff] and cutlets [not so amazing stuff] and was fortunate enough to really 'experience' living in russia, if only for a week. kat and i went sightseeing every single day, which means that my knee is still recovering from walking on the ice [and, er, falling hard on it as well], but we were able to see most of the big and important museums, like the hermitage and russian museum, as well as the landmarks and lifelines of st pete [like nevsky prospekt]. we went out to eat twice - to a pancake house [but definitely NOT like IHOP] and a wonderful georgian restaurant [by the way, georgian wine is the best red wine i have ever tasted] - and out for beers twice, when i realized that russia makes the most amazing light beer. kat was my own personal translator and tour guide, and i think that's what gave the visit the extra push that made it so amazing.

little observations:
soviet throwbacks. kat is completely used to this, but i couldn't wrap my head around it. every time we went to ride public transportation, those waiting to ride would mob the door as if having to wait until the next, for example, metro, which came every 2 minutes, meant that night was a night without dinner or something. same thing for riding the escalators down to the metro [which, by the way, is 60 meters underground because of the swamp upon which st pete is built]. this isn't a bad thing, of course, it's just habit... but i want to stand on a podium and just tell everyone in russia that "there is enough bread! you will all eat bread tonight!" just a small dream.
candyland. kat tells me st pete was built by peter the great as a window to europe. and so the buildings are built in a european fashion. apparently this european fashion includes bright, tacky pastel exterior paint. we went to see a church one day - not just any church, but a church built in the midst of blocks of stalinist flat buildings. this church, however, was circular. and bright pink.
symbolism. *everything* is a symbol of something. unbelievable. there are no simple statues in st pete. nor were any buildings built for the simple sake of building. i need to be a historian to explain it all, so instead you should just read a book about it if you are interested.
crazy snow-like weather. it was between -10 and -20 celsius the entire time i was there [i believe thats right around 0 farenheit, pushing the negatives] and so it was without a doubt *cold*. and apparently i brought the snow with me. it was absolutely beautiful, and as kat mentioned, the flakes would rest ever-so-delicately on your clothing such that you could carefully observe every detail of their crystals. but after the fourth day of windy snow you start wishing for a respite.
amazing eye candy. kat doesn't understand this, but russian men are hands down the most attractive ethnic group i can identify in such a manner. enough said.
the irony of courtesy. we spent the entire time i was there basically whispering english to each other so as to not offend any russians. i didn't mind, though it was a little difficult considering the level of functioning of my ears. and then, because karma works in such wonderful ways, i sat next to the loudest, drunkest russian couple on my flight [who by the way apparently knew all the other russian couples on the plane]. the woman was drinking vermouth and sprite. vermouth and sprite, for fuck's sake!
russian dubbing. mission impossible 2 and scream are quite hilarious dubbed into russian. someone should really introduce russia to the virtues of subtitles.

ps - pictures are up! go to my group and check 'em out [groups.msn.com/kiminscotland].

2002-12-30T16:14:00.000-05:00

a post-st-pete hello from edinburgh! i am tired and don't feel like writing the novel that it will take to explain my trip, so for now just look at what kat has written as a good introduction. more to follow soon...

2002-12-20T23:38:00.000-05:00

ok. made first Big Mistake in edinburgh. luckily though, i did not let this turn into a Very Big Mistake. oh phew. have showered, brushed and listerined, and am feeling comparatively better.

more later, it's late and i'm old.

carve your name into my arm
instead of stressed i lie here charmed
[placebo, "every you every me"]

2002-12-19T21:48:00.000-05:00

can't believe i almost forgot to post this.
happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday dear CCCCHHHHRRRIIIISSSSSSSSS
happy birthday to you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY #19, CHRISTOFARIUS! when you come to visit me we'll celebrate properly.

[my baby brother isn't such a baby anymore.]

there are folks that say to have a soul you’ve got to suffer
well lately i’ve had my RDA of that
and call it fascist but i know that someday happy
will be all that matters
[dismemberment plan, "memory machine"]

2002-12-19T21:39:00.000-05:00

i love a good debate. janet writes in her comment concerning the ted rall article pasted directly below:
Yea, I read about that. Guess our CIA and National Security could only come up with a whimpy response like, "Oh Dear, oops, we'll try to be more careful". If you belive that, then.........

well, see, that's exactly the opposite of the point - the CIA and bush admin *did not* say "oops" because of the nature of the executive order. the order gives them the right never to say "oops" about that sort of thing again. what the admin said instead was that this sort of action is justified based on the "enemy combatant" order - even though one of the persons killed was an american citizen, and thus should have been entitled to constitutional guarantees, the designation "enemy combatant" trumps any invocation of civil rights. so, then, the admin does not need to be more careful, and most certainly did not offer that as a response - what they did offer, in fact, was the opposite. they effectively declared that they will no longer be careful about this sort of thing given the "enemy combatant" executive order and the new powers it gives to the admin.

on a completely different note. will now be staying with kat at her host family's flat for the entirety of my trip to st petersburg, pending her email back to me [the first night will still be at the hostel]. also shot a half-roll of black and white film here in edinburgh, and am saving the rest for st pete. should have many rolls of film to post when i get back!

if it’s a life of possibilities
that you’ve gotta live then
don’t be surprised when they don’t remember you
or simply don’t want to
[dismemberment plan, "a life of possibilities"]

2002-12-19T11:51:00.000-05:00

this is absolutely bloody brilliant. i bequeath to ted rall my firstborn child.

A Presidential Impostor Turns Political Assassin
by Ted Rall

NEW YORK--First he appointed himself President. Now George W. Bush has declared himself God.

As Americans begin their third year of Supreme Court-ordered political occupation, Bush has just signed an impressive new executive order. You may be surprised to learn that it grants him the right to order your execution. No judge, jury or lawyer. No chance to prove your innocence. One stroke of Bush's pen, and bang--you're dead.

Not even your American citizenship, according to Bush, will save your life if and when he decides to kill you. The only reason you're reading this right now--instead of meeting the Entity Formerly Known as God--is that neither Bush nor one of his "high-level officials" has yet signed a piece of paper declaring you an "enemy combatant." Once they do the paperwork, Administration officials assert, they have the right to murder you.

Bush's secret assassination directive surfaced on Dec. 3, when reporters asked about the Nov. 3 Central Intelligence Agency rub-out of alleged Al Qaeda operatives riding in a car in Yemen. Langley fired a Hellfire missile from a remote-controlled Predator drone into the vehicle, blowing up several men. The CIA later discovered that an American citizen, Kamal Derwish, had inadvertently been killed in the inferno.

"No constitutional questions are raised here," asserted National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, stretching credulity more than usual. Officials claim that a loophole in Bush's order authorizing the CIA to "covertly attack Al Qaeda all over the world" validates Derwish's murder. Since this sneaky directive makes exception neither for Americans nor American soil, these guys say, you and I have no more rights than the now-deceased, not-presumed-innocent Kamal Derwish.

Your life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are now officially subject to George W. Bush's personal judgement--or whim.

The war on terrorism isn't a war, it's a cheesy public service announcement, like the "war on poverty" and the "war on drugs." Like those old un-won campaigns, it involves no declaration of war, no defined enemy, no front. And like them it will gradually fade into embarrassing irrelevance. "Can you believe it?" future citizens will marvel. "People actually took this stuff seriously!" In the meantime, America's Gang of Four--Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft--have brilliantly exploited the nebulousness of nullity. Having no enemy means that anyone can be declared the enemy. Having no battleground means that the battleground is anywhere and everywhere. "The Bush Administration and Al Qaeda together have defined the entire world as a battlefield," writes the Associated Press' John J. Lumpkin.

While the CIA has targeted U.S. citizens in the past, those killings were officially sanctioned only when the person in question was considered an immediate threat to American lives. Scott L. Silliman, director of the Duke University Center on Law, Ethics and National Security asks: "Could you put a Hellfire missile into a car in Washington, D.C. under the same theory? The answer is yes, you could."

Never mind that anyone driving on the Beltway could just as easily be pulled over by the cops. Like the medieval lords who wielded the right of life and death over their subjects, our Texan warlord now claims the droit du seigneur over the American people.

Under his legalized assassination mandate, Bush could theoretically declare the 2004 Democratic nominee an "enemy combatant," Hellfire his campaign bus and coast to reelection unopposed. It would be a heck of a lot easier than preparing for debates.

Granted, it's unlikely that CIA missiles will begin raining down on Berkeley or other liberal burgs anytime soon. Killing Muslims, even those with U.S. citizenship, is one thing; offing "ordinary" Americans is another. As has been the case with previous Bushie infringements on fundamental civil rights--electronic eavesdropping, jailing people without trial or a visit by a lawyer--most citizens believe themselves safe simply by virtue of their not being terrorists.

They may be right. They might be wrong. It's all in the hands of the executioner-in-chief now.

i have never denied a political reason for leaving the states.

2002-12-17T12:21:00.000-05:00

i'm feeling cheeky today. i was walking down princes street and saw something quite blasphemous. on the ground, outside marks and spencers or debenhams or some department-store-ish thing like that, i saw a street vendor displaying his merchandise: the wire likenesses of bart and homer simpson, dancing to a techno beat coming out of a boombox next to them. dancing mechanically, i believe, like those dancing flowers in a pot - except that those dancing flowers are anchored, and these wire figures were free to roam about the ground on their dancing wire feet.

um... wot?

i still don't understand.

pop quiz poll. would you rather:
eat live goldfish
or
stir-fry slugs?

[a] wriggle, wriggle.
[b] soy sauce with slime.

which choice will win? oh the anticipation!

2002-12-17T06:26:00.000-05:00

i think this is so hilarious. my friends here have said the same thing, but i never really thought it was prevalent until i read this [an article written by a 12 year old british ex-pat living in kansas with his family]. the part i'm referring to:
And I think there's a language barrier because everyone says things like "y'all". At school, I have to slow down how I talk so people can understand it. My friends try to talk like me but just sound like the Queen.

i bet i sound like the queen sometimes too.

2002-12-16T20:40:00.000-05:00

how i got through three years at the university of virginia, in no particular order.
1. healing pillows.
2. 11.5 and 12.5pt font.
3. doc johnson.
4. you.
5. "you, sir - cake or death?"
6. upsilon tau sigma.
7. music, music², music³... musicⁿ.
8. espresso royale, clemons and cocke.
9. tequila, limes and toilets.
10. nietzsche.

2002-12-16T16:05:00.000-05:00

apparently i haven't posted anything in about a week. so then...

saw donnie darko last nite. amazing film. i refuse to believe, however, that the actual plot line is the point of the story. i've got it narrowed down to a meditation on suburban america in the late 80's, with an emphasis on the question of god's existence. you should see it, and then email me what you think.

oh yes - i quit my job. and here's why [apologies dad, you'll have seen this before]:
well, they insulted me in every possible way. they told me i was too American and needed to get over it [for example, the word ‘done’ is apparently American slang, and no one in Britain uses it – right]. they told me that i asked silly questions, and then yelled at me for not asking enough questions. they yelled for me not answering the phone, and then answering the phone incorrectly, and then not answering the phone [after i had clearly heard a conversation telling someone not to pick up the phone as it was a fax]. the cook got so mad at me that he threw an ice cream scoop across the kitchen because i didn’t hear exactly what he had said and had to ask him to repeat it. they explained why they only hired students [intelligent, fast learners, mannered, etc] and then said that i had to stop expecting to be treated as a student [which, like the other arguments, makes no sense to me]. the manager maintains a “no offense” policy if either she or the trainee decides to end the training, and then after i told her that i wasn’t going to come back she continues to insult me. apparently, according to her, working in the restaurant business is exactly how working any other job is, especially post-graduation, and so i should expect this type of treatment everywhere. she told me, in effect, that i should go back to driving a bus. she lauded herself about her training skills [i beg to differ] and said that anyone unable to make it under her would never make it anywhere. i told her it was a difference of personality, but i had meant to say philosophy, and as i was in the middle of correcting myself she launched into this detailed explanation of why it couldn’t be a difference of personality because i had no idea what her personality was since i had never given her a chance to show it. i hadn’t earned my respect, and apparently no one is respected until they do something to deserve respect. well, i found out more about her personality in the 3 or 4 shifts that i worked there than i probably would have worked in a whole year. she’s the type of person who manipulates every situation to make her the correct person [even if she’s wrong, you are to learn from her mistake, and she yells if you don’t catch her mistake before she does]. she’s a control freak, given that she does co-own the restaurant, but she gives her staff no flexibility at all. she treats you as if you are the thickest person in the world and then expects you to know things she hasn’t even told you. not to mention that i am completely against this whole no-respect thing—i understand that some people find it hard to respect someone until they earn that respect, but even then there’s a level of respect given to someone simply because they are a co-worker, even if it’s only superficial. i can’t endorse, however, a policy which maintains rudeness and caustic treatment of employees until they do something to earn respect and equal treatment. you can’t expect your employees to respect you if you don’t treat them as though they have their own sense of dignity.

ps - if you are bored, take a look at everything in the left-hand column in this page, especially the 'kittens' subsection. yau!

2002-12-08T11:47:00.000-05:00

geezus. this fire is about 1/4 mile away from me. in fact, i live right off of the cowgate, on the other side of south bridge. i'll try and get some pictures.

2002-12-04T18:05:00.000-05:00

MILAN (Reuters) - An Italian man who packed his bags 44 years ago and told friends he was leaving for America was found dead inside one of the walls of his home. An American woman who recently bought the house near Lucca in northern Tuscany discovered the body Tuesday as she was carrying out renovations, police said. Inside a thick wall in the cellar the woman found human remains, two packed suitcases, a trowel and other equipment to make a wall, a rusted rifle and a bottle with a suicide note. The note, on paper headed with the name Nemo Cianelli, explained that the man had discovered he had an incurable disease and had decided to kill himself. He said he had invented the tale of going to America to avoid upsetting his family. Local newspapers reported in 1958 that Cianelli was missing, and speculated that he might have gone to America, but after a period of rumor and mystery, the story was forgotten. Police said it appeared Cianelli had packed his suitcases, written the suicide note, built a wall up around himself and then shot himself.

oy. edgar allan poe-esque.

2002-12-04T05:28:00.000-05:00

popular bbc searches this morning:
1. changing rooms.
2. persian.
3. east timor.

2002-12-02T19:38:00.000-05:00

have spent last two nights reading both editions of bridget jones saga [in reverse order no less], resulting in desire to
[a] post cv to every possible employer in london and edinburgh in hopes of leading young hip almost-professional life
[b] ignore nagging sense of having 'faked it' through university due to proof that even a graduate unaware of the geographical location of germany can lead a young hip almost-professional life
[c] find colin firth-esque man of integrity, wit, and age [though late 30s is slightly unappealing] to speed entry into young hip almost-professional life by serving as slightly-less-young hip definitely-professional boyfriend.

unfortunate results of above-mentioned reading: have taken evolution to life of fictional character a bit too far, as embarrassing tray-dropping incident in teviot hall in manner of bridget jones clearly illustrates. also, have not been able to break from diary-style of thought processes, including dreams and inner monologues in said style. obviously leading quite sad life.

2002-12-02T19:25:00.000-05:00

tony blair wearing a chandelier on his head. i knew blair and bush were of similar orientation.

oh, and the copywriters at bbc news are impressive. caption as follows: 'There is renewed speculation as to who gets to inherit the crown from Tony Blair.'

here's something interesting - if you have msn messenger and feel like having a chat, i am usually on in the evenings here [after 3/2pm est/cst] under my email address [greenshade08@hotmail.com] so look me up :)

2002-11-30T22:35:00.000-05:00

so i'm still suffering from tonite's bout of insomnia. here's something hilarious i just noticed: bbc's webpage tracks subjects entered into its search engine form, and then displays the top 3 search requests at regular intervals throughout the day. makes for some pretty interesting combinations of terms. for example, right now the top 3 searches are:
1. daniel deronda [a novel by george eliot, and also a bbc-adapted miniseries currently showing]
2. sri lanka
3. urdu.
i can't explain to you how funny this is. and i think eddie izzard would agree.

oh, and by the way - the sun rises here at 8.20am, and sets at 3.40pm. a little more than 7 hours of daylight. fucking nuts!