the beginning of a mess

Florida ballot papers go missing
The US postal service hunts 58,000 postal ballot papers missing in the key marginal state of Florida. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3960679.stm)

12 hours

ella llegaras manana!
i'm going to florence in 2 weeks and need to practice my spanish
sterotypical london evening.
dusk at 5.30, rain at 6 and crazy traffic for my evening cycle ride. i saw someone jump over his handlebars when he had to stop quickly and then kick the offending car. jen is cooking up dinner, cameron is ironing in front of the tv and i'm working on jesse's stories.

'i turn to you' busting out my base, and i'm discovering that i can stand on my own two feet sometimes. that this giant bluff i made up about staying in london and working in UK government policy (i'm an american, remember) is going to work. that i can pull off interviews, do freelance research and end up working in and ON (i'm trying to work in planning/public policy) a city i love.

dawn

my dream is interrupted by my mother and brother screaming
and i am awake
in a chilly, silent and vacant room, lit by pre dawn grey
staring at my reflection in the mirror
i shudder, and roll over

grey

the light has not changed all day.
i sit a western facing window, and need a desk lamp at 4pm to see
miss the september shifting shadows and light dances

mi tio, otra vez

Family & Friends,

I have accepted a position with KBR-Halliburton Corporation as the Deputy Program Manager for the Iraq mission. I will office out of the KBR Headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq and be responsible for their military and embassy support operations in Iraq and logistical hubs in Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. I will be in a positon that will provide me and excellent opportunity to have a direct positve impact on the lives of our many military and contractor employed men and women deployed in our
nation's interest.

I will be traveling extensively throughout the region and have been assured I will be provided as much security protection as possible by either the military or contract security. Halliburton does not allow their employees to carry firearms.

I have a 478 personnel combat surgical hospital deploying to Iraq in December so I'll also be performing my duties in the Army Reserve and handling their deployment to two different locations in Iraq. I'll probably be the only "drilling" reservist in Iraq as all the others are mobilized and on active duty.

This position will require 16/7 for 120 consecutive days with 10 days off after each. I will be able to return home for a week sometime next year and my plan is to be able to come home Camp Rio Roxo.

My previous trip to Iraq I carried 5 bags in order to get all my gear over there. I will have to make this trip with only 2 bags this time. Beth will be sending me packages in the future so I will only be able to carry your prayers and best wishes with me as I begin this endeavor.

I'll be leaving on Sunday to report to Halliburton Headquarters in Houston to begin orientation and enter their Exectuve Training Program for deployment to Iraq. I am on an "expedited" request from Baghdad so I'll be in Houston from 6 to 10 days and fly directly to Iraq.

Your prayers for Beth and I are very much appreciated.

CSM Garry L. XXXXX
807th Command Sergeant Major
807th Medical Command

girls are bastards, guys are sluts

Sorry to read that digs, Nomad but love and life and relationships are messy. we'd all be happy, productive humans if it wasn't. perhaps we'd have transferred all the spare energy we spend on it now to furthering the human race. but then if we were all happy and sorted in relationships i suspect there'd be a lot more people on the planet. i suspect romantic love was an unconciously self-generated concept to slow reproduction rates. well at least it evolved about when people didn't have to care about survival and could care about matters of the heart.

i'm not going to try to console anyone over love and women and men and women or whatever your preference may be. personally, i'm a bit weird about love and desire. i think my favorite treatise on love (this is not sex i'm talking about here,) is probably Kierkegaard's "Seducers Diary" in which he obsesses over a 16 year old, slowly makes her love him and then leaves her. its' a masterful tale of obsession (which i relate to), slow seduction by a male siren of an innocent girl (hmm..perhaps reverse sexes and ages?) and psychological trauma caused by love. (nope). my second favorite treatise on love and human behaviour is richard dawkins "the selfish gene" (chapter 4).

I'll leave these pointless ramblings with my flatmate cameron''s quote of the week. he (who, coincidentally, has had one serious girlfriend and after a year has yet to recover) concluded last night "girls dont like guys, they like cars and money".

with hope though, like and love are different concepts entirely.

test

test

changes

hope everyone in the aiesec world has noticed you can now get better posting (ie server up all the time) through www.nomadlife.org.

as i understand my blogroll on the right is updated, let me know if you've got a new URL and i haven't changed the link! or if you can argue convincingly as to why your blog should be there too.

washington post and kerry?

gasp. the us's mainstream conservative/right/republican? newspaper is no longer republican? bbc's reporting the post has come out for kerry, and the website has a nice tiny subscribe-yourself link to an editorial "kerry for president"

glimmer of hope that the guy's got a shot. but then, despite the post's editorials being the centerfold of public political debate in the us, i doubt ANY percentage of swing voters in crucial states reads it. back to sleep, usa.

nomadlife.org

thanks to Dody and SILVERKEY for hosting my weblog on nomadlife.org! so you've now got an easier address to remember, change your links. wonderwoman

shame

the narrative grabs your mind in a vise and runs, dragging you behind, gathering speed as you bounce between rocks and slaps until disoriented, confused between pain and pleasure you begin to run with it, hurrying the ending that must come and begging to be left breathless, stunned, bruised but free

you are who you were raised to be. you are rooted in a motherland frustrated by a forced migration with only hand baggage.

after how many years do novels acquire scholarly introductions? i will tell my sisters children how i read (lived) rushdie before his books reached mandatory reading lists and acquired interpretations.

stags rutting

grass is still green
but the yellow fallen leaves swirl towards the serpintine
and white puffs sail, race across a crystal blue sky
heralds of the end, of the dark and of the cold

cycled to richmond park, deer in heat
bus exhaust warm in chilly air
a young jewish boy eyes my nylon and heaving chest
an older distinguished black man grins, rollerblading past
the suits in cabs on the hammersmith roundabout surprised
and me smug, outside on such a glorious day

lassitude

las·si·tude (ls-td, -tyd)
n.

A state or feeling of weariness, diminished energy, or listlessness.

AKA this afternoon. finished azimov's trilogy, watched stupid tv and made a phone call or two. the brain never hovered above minimum energy expenditure levels. sitting in the kitchen, slowly reading and eating the remains of an apple cobbler, the word came to mind unbidden; however apt.

good day

kate's got a well paid job in china
my interview today seems to have gone down easily, with a 2nd round next week, & i've got an offer for a position here in london, which i'm probably going to turn down
cameron's got a new interesting job around the corner at BNP earning great
thibault is home from the hospital and his nose is no longer bleeding
my apple crumble is edible
and jennifer did stunningly well on her presentation
can't beat that.

slightly miffed

WWF-UK
"PowerSwitch, WWF's new Climate Change Campaign

Through PowerSwitch, WWF's new Climate Change Campaign, we will build a network of people from across the UK whose lives have been affected and in some cases devastated by the effects of extreme weather events.

Our first step is to gather stories from you - WWF's supporters. We want to hear your stories and those of your family and friends. Over the coming months, we will be pulling this information together to create a picture of how extreme weather or temperature events are really affecting people and the environment and asking for your help in lobbying government and industry to take urgent action to help stop climate change. "

somebody needs to tell them to move to the states. between earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, snowstorms, mississippi-style floods and ice freezes they'll have more than enough stories. this country has no idea what a thunderstorm is. nor large flying insects or poisionous reptiles for that matter.

also, what bull. i dislike organisations who use 'personal stories' in their advertising to build a 'convincing case' that somethings wrong. really, 20 people complaining about hurricanes in florida doesn't have any scientific connection to climate change. if they can prove that over the past 100 years weather around the globe has consistently gotten worse BECAUSE of climate change, i'll listen to the data. not to some sob story.

after reading the site, i suspect the hardest difficulty about proving climate change lies in the sad fact that most floods, urban heatwaves and irregular weather can be caused by alternative human-created problems. concreting over large swathes of green and soil causes floods to be more frequent and severe; heat-retaining brick and concrete along with (paradoxically) heat released by air-conditioners and other building appliances cause 'urban sinks' of heat, where temperatures can be up to 10 degrees hotter than the surrounding countryside; and tall buildings, damming up rivers and draining swamps can all alter local weather patterns by chaning humidity and wind levels.

from csr-asia this week

Laos drops minimum age for work - The Lao Ministry of Labour has recommended that the legal age for workers be dropped to 15 from the current 18 in response to the increasing demand for labour.

Globalisation 'not good' for women - The Pakistan Daily Times claims that
women face growing insecurity because of increased competition brought about by globalisation and points to the fact that out of the 1.3 billion poor in the world, 70% are women.

Pepsi child labour advert banned - A High Court judge in India has ordered Pepsi to withdraw a TV commercial featuring a 10-year-old boy serving a cricket team with cans of Pepsi. Activists and NGOs said the advert glorified child labour.

Cambodia joins WTO - The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has admitted Cambodia as its 148th member country.

Jobs continue to move from west to east - A new report by the Universities of Cornell and Massachusetts-Amherst says that 48,000 American jobs were shifted overseas in the January-March fiscal quarter. 8,283 went to China, 3,895 to India and 4,419 to other Asian countries.

Boy rescued from slavery in India - A 13-year-old boy has managed to escape from the clutches of kidnappers who had seized him more than three years ago and forced him into bonded labour in Uttaranchal along with six other teenagers who were later rescued, reports The Hindu.

China climbs up carbon dioxide chart - A BBC report on the effects of China's economic growth on its environment finds that the country is now the world's second largest generator of carbon dioxide emissions and could overtake the US as the biggest source of greenhouse gases within three decades.

Hinglish is the pukka way to talk

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1313096,00.html
"People are “felicitated” on their birthdays, “condoled” on sad occasions and if they want to be really insulting, they will dismiss an argument as “poppycock”.

Hinglish, as the variety of English spoken in India is known, may seem a little old-fashioned but according to a leading British expert it could soon become the most common spoken form of the language. " (Sunday Times)

general mandrake

http://www.howbadru.com/
fun for all ages

collateral

tom cruise, tad creepy as a psychopath hit man, in living color hitting dead on without a comic line. i prefer john cusack in Gross Point Blank, but this isnt a comedy romance.
instead a commentary on the nature of an individual in modern american society. nilihism, the lost insignificant individual, the mean system and the caring cop. the crass value of a life.

but the ambience of LA through film is incredible. and dead on.
parking lots, empty 6 lane highways, absent pedestrians, hard industrial steam
chain link fences and flourescent gas stations
like the 1924 film Metropolis, the city oppressive
yet multiracial LA, a black lawyer who isn't the hollywood black mould, vietnamese shopping centres, latino clubs and the good hispanic cop.

motivation

when i have a job and work permit:
get a drivers license
buy rug, curtains
find art for my walls
pay off student loan
winter bicycle gloves and rain jacket
knee length dark red leather fitted coat

the weekend went french

chilean sauvingon blanc
seared scallops w/ bacon
tuna steak - mouthwatering rare, sashimi that got the juices flowing
creme brulee
bellinni
_
champagne, rose
french onion soup
foil steamed salmon with lemongrass and veg
molluex (steamed chocolate cake, melted in the middle)

marylebone high street

near the flat exists one of the finest collection of shops in london:
http://www.streetsensation.co.uk/marybone/mh_intro.htm
plus i think it's hilarious that someone has dedicated weeks to websites like that.
they have, however left out the two best.
biggle's sausages - a butcher's dedicated entirely to sausage.
and la fromagerie - undeniably, the best cheese shop in london.

shoes by the heater

baker street - marble arch - kensington palace
and back.
in the rain

and again this morning, with more rain
london'a skies are against me: blue and clear yesterday morning, sunny now. but no, the moment i step outside for jog, the heavens open and it starts pissing it down. at least its still above 50F, and warm enough in my fleece vest. and i get hyde park all to myself.

wed afternoons

I am laying in my bed, wondering what it would feel like to be able to walk upside down across my ceiling and how soon I would get a headache.

first round w/ ARUP this morning, went well and I hope the second goes even better.
i will go running soon
and then to LSE for a free lecture

que chiva

gracias a adrien en costa rica por su ayuda con mi viejo blog.
ahora voy a tenerlo en mi computadora, self-linked y todo.

: )

today's random links of the day: (themed suburban blight)
not fooling anybody: http://www.notfoolinganybody.com
eyesore of the month:http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore.html

the vocab of citizenship: UK/US

because i've had two discussions about this in the past 4 days, i thought i'd share my thoughts on the different attitudes to citizenship and race in the UK and the US, and what implications that has in any national debate on immigration or integration. i'm also going to copy liberally from a term paper i wrote in april on varying notions of multicultralism. it wanders, so have patience.

at the heart of any discussion on ethnic minorities in the US and the UK lies a problem of vocabulary. (there's also a whole nother paper on differing concepts of land in the US and UK, and what that has to do with immigration, but remind me later to write it) in my opinion, the brits have the better setup.
in the UK, being 'british' does not have any ethnic or cultural connotations. the word simply signifies one as a citizen of the UK, with a passport and voting rights, all that. brits are then, additionally, english, scottish, pakistani, afrocarribean... in the US, 'american' has ethnic and cultural connotations. american means - primarily - white and judeo-christian. that's why minorities in the US often qualifiy themselves: 'african americans', 'irish americans' and 'mexican americans'. American english lacks a word that signifies an individual as a citizen of the United States, without implying anything else (and unitedstatesian just doesnt cut it).

Because this conundrum of vocabulary is confused in government, news and popular useage, people from the US have trouble separating the idea of an 'american' with 'white'. to make this clear, what do you think of when you hear 'gay?' i'd bet its not 'happy'; what platonic image is generated in the cave of your head when you hear 'american'? again, i'd bet its not a indonesian software programmer in chicago. so not only does discussion gets a little messy, with qualifiers and misunderstandings all over, but the separation of polical citizenship and cultural association muddles up.

the US needs to separate 'american citizen' from the popular socio-cultural notion of 'white christian american' before the concept of 'american citizens' can alter to reflect the reality of a nation where 31% of the population is foreign born, over 50% speak an additional language besides english and people of Hispanic descent equal with African Americans as the US’s largest minority (and who together will soon overwhelm the 'majority').

Creating a the notion of the US as nation not based on a ‘cultural’ identity (ie white judeochristian) but a on a group of citizens who all respect the same human rights and national laws would take more than a shift in vocab, i'll admit. Living in london, where government documents are avaliable in at least 10 languages, has showed me that the US buracracy does little more than pay lip service to 'multicultural' america. There's a lot the government could do to shift the mindset of the public in the US into a model which recognises the multitude of cultural ‘nations’ inside the political nation.

try this: a revision of educational curriculum to include a history of minorities now present in the country, (what the hell happened to the american indians?) creating advisory boards to facilitate consultation on integration, nationally recognizing holy days, and teaching public servants such as police to be sensitive to cultural and linguistic differences in their daily practice. Central to liberal multiculturalism theory (that would be the idea that immigrants shouldn't have to change their culture in order to assimilate) is the absence of an imposition of cultural identity (no official categorization) and the state actively seeking to reduce inequalities in power, rather than entrenching dominance of existing citizens. (Kymlica 42 2001). Liberal multiculturalism does not, however, mean that countries have given up a sense of ‘national identity’ (either culturally or politically). On the contrary, the United States could to strengthen its national identity with serious multicultural policies and simultaneously enlarging the role of citizenship in the national consciousness.

ok so this babble is essential to any serious attempt to deal with the problem of immigrant 'integration' or 'assmiliation'. i mean, we can't have people who live on the same land treating each other badly, can we? kymlica argues for a ‘trade off' where immigrants fully accept and participate in the requirements for citizenship and common institutions (like respecting human rights), but in return the nation adjusts its rules, patterns, symbols and policies to ensure a fair and equal treatment as accorded to the majority groups.

END.
ps. let's get this straight: i think the US's current draconian immigration and visa policies are absolute hypocritical bullshit when they permit 1/2 a million mexicans/latin americans to enter undocumented every year because the US needs cheap labour to sustain it's consumer consuption.

chicago marathon

dody - 26 miles, 4 hours 50 min. amazing.

egyptian commentary

once again, i direct you to tomgara for intelligent hilarious commentary on the recent bombings in egypt.

paige in brooklyn

ps - i thought you might find this amusing..i was looking in the box of
an old boardgame 'wordsters' and i found our sheets from middleschool probably.
here are some highlights from our words:

LNT
sarah - plant, planet, plants, planets
paige - lent, flint, slant, valiant, gallant

GRD
sarah - grand, grandfather, grind, grinding, grinders, graduate,
undergraduate
paige - grades, grading, grader, graded, graduation

ILE
sarah - isle, isles, Gaile, file, files, miles, smile, smiles, tile
paige - crocodile, mile, miles, while, file, crocodiles, rile

SUE
sarah - sues, suez, suites, suite, sure, assure, assures, assuring,
assured, reassured, reassure, reassures, reassuring
paige - misunderstood, misunderstanding, sucker, suckers, summed,
smushed, smusher, smushers, disguise, misunderstand

sunday night

in the bath, back from a champagne-laden 24 hours in chelsea.
glad we have wireless, as the bathtub is a comfy place
random link of the day: words of the year
music: Ludovico Einaudi live at la scala

light

i had to stop and risk the wrath of the park wardens
cycle out on hyde park's lawn to watch the last few minutes
dark dramatic puffs circling round the red sun,
clouds straining for the last pink highlights

best light of the year: october dusk in london
wind means the smog is over the channel
crisp clear, accentuated by the slanting light
you can see in the shadows as in the sun
shades and shades of green in the trees
the detail overwhelms the eyes, accustomed to contrast

egypt news

tom in Cairo.
good comments on the bombing:

"I dont think internationally people are really understanding how much of a crisis this could lead to. This event could severely shag the economy of the most populous, miltarily powerful and influential Arab countries - and in doing so, it may have an interesting effect on the Egyptian political and social landscape."

wiki bbc news

http://www.whitelabel.org/wp/wikiproxy.php
article and words linked to wikipedia

nexus

A. tired of waiting for the aiesec server to work
B. should probably relieve aiesec of my enormous blog
A, B ->C
C. new blog.

anyone know how to migrate my old posts? i dont want to loose them.