Sunday, June 16, 2002
Freezerbox has a very good article on Cuban trade sanctions.
Our obsession with Cuba is bizarre. We insist that democracy and free elections must trump all else on that island, including business. This is an admirable stance, but it is also one to which we hold no other nation. The human rights abuses that exist in Cuba pale next to those in China, but our trade with China grows every day. China was granted its trade status, in fact, using precisely the opposite logic that governs our relations with Cuba. We were told, in China's case, that market reforms would be a crucial first step toward democratization. In Cuba we are told they will be meaningless.
Sunday, June 16, 2002
According to the NY Times, Strom Thurmond
"was 66 when he married Nancy Moore, a 22-year-old former Miss South Carolina who had been an intern in his office."
Saturday, June 15, 2002
Two good friends of mine are in Kosovo teaching English to the Roma. This is what Dennison has to say about it:
So this is interesting. I have talked my whole life about putting things on the line for something I believed in, and I suppose I really doing that now. I am living with a nice Roma Familly in Kosovo, in a predominatly Serb Village not far outside of a Albanian City. Kosovo is everything most of you have ever imagined. There are tons of military. Check points, tanks. There are burnt out villages, bullet holes, machines guns and grenade burns. There are also factories larger than your entire possible imagination. Factories with smoke stacks as tall as new york skyscrapers, belching horrible fumes into the air. These factories must be fourty or fifty stories tall. They make entire mountain chains of slag behind them. They have fields of condensor evaporators. These old communist concrete structures which are comming to peices, with huge reactor chimneys. They are things one can't imagine. One factory the size of everything that ever worked in Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Chicago. Huge. And decayed. Working, but riddled with bullets and rockets. Decayed to time. It looks like a giant space-station from the distant past that has falled to earth. A city of waste. Of wasteland.
The land here, is green. It is vast. Long deep fields of wheat reach out to the horizon where long mountain chains begin. The landscape is dotten with villages. Serb and Albanian. There are many places burned to the ground.
And so it is dangerous. People threaten to kill us from the highways. The albanian flag is a scary one, dark crimson red with a black eagle, not unlike that of imperial Germany.
What else? The language here to speak is English. Speak it like it is going out of style. Here when you say the wrong word from the wrong language you are shot. I speak only english.
What else? There is something about this place. Perhaps it is a bizzare contrast between such natural wealth. Such abundance. And the horror with which man has treated such bounty. I doubt if the UN will ever leave this place. It is a horrible mistake. Everything here is a mistake. If there were no people here, it would be paradise. People have made it a complete hell.
So what else? Not much. I am doing well for now. I am healthy and happy. I enjoy teaching and I enjoy my familly. I have never drunk so much, (and such good) coffee before in my life.
So, draw your own conclusions with all this. I have not decided what I think myself.
Friday, June 14, 2002
Ralph Nadar's appeal has always baffled me. He's too ... smug, which is why it's nice to see some lefties roast him in Bully
Wednesday, June 12, 2002
Yesterday I went to the DC IMC
event at Visions. It was a two hour series of lectures, slides, and videos. Cynical libertarian that I
am, initially my eyes rolled at the sight of the “Rhythm Workers Union” drumming by the
entrance, or the continual references to the “military-industrial complex” and “ruling classes,”
but, as a pacifist at heart, I found the first
film “Eyewitness to Afghanistan” riveting. Several family members of 9-11 victims travelled to
Kabul to view the wreckage. The exchange between an American father and Afghani mother,
who had both lost 20 year old children because of the war, was as emotional as one can expect.
Imagine hundreds of “ground-zero”s separated by sand, wreckage, and starving peasants – that’s
Kabul. The people who live near the front-lines, are among Afghanistan’s poorest. They could
not afford to leave the city. And they were the victims of US bombing.
Tuesday, June 11, 2002
No one has asked -- as I have told no one about the new site yet -- but I'm sure you will wonder why I switched URLs. It was time for a clean sheet. I don't want anyone hunting through my old archives for the drunken adventures I posted when I was 19. It's easy to go overboard on a soapbox, but now I've got a firm grasp of "creative restraint."
Tuesday, June 11, 2002
I lifted this curious icon from Unanswered Questions, which launched yesterday. What is that in his hand?
Monday, June 10, 2002
Disinformation has an interesting AP article on quasi-libertarian hero Ronald Reagan's exploits as California govenor. FOIA releases show he had the FBI hush Berkley student dissents.
In its unsuccessful battle to keep them secret, the agency had said its actions had been proper -- that it had merely tried to protect civil order and national security during a time when the nation feared Communism and waged war in Vietnam.
Monday, June 10, 2002
just as i remembered...
PRAGUE (Reuters) - Czech voters are having to make some hard election choices -- should they support the party offering free alcohol or the one using topless women in its campaign?
Monday, June 10, 2002
O yes, it is definatly the summertime as i cruise down Rock Creek Parkways, windows down, sunglasses on, 94.7 playing "More than a Feeling..."
Monday, June 10, 2002
A few years back the Utne Reader had an article on "narrative"-intensive culture, maybe prefiguring the blog revolution. It's the politics of soliloquy. Whatever. I only bother to read Postrel
Sunday, June 9, 2002
I'm still not sure how I'm going to maneuver this; whether it will be the place to spill last evenings exploits or just a tangled mass of links. Today, I'd start with both, if I weren't so hungover.
Saturday, June 8, 2002
"This is a song about music. It's called 'Hats off to Music."
