No U.S. city is in the top 25.
Before I pop the champagne (I live in Montreal), I have to remind myself that this ranking is based on some very specific standards. Says the Unit:«With low crime, little threat from instability or terrorism and a highly developed infrastructure, Canada has the most livable destinations in the world... In the current global political climate, it is no surprise that the most desirable destinations are those with a lower perceived threat of terrorism».
This type of classification reminds me of the methodology used by UN agencies to calculate the perdiem rate for their experts on mission, which is based on the cost of items such as a bottle of coke or a hamburger. I'm not saying that their analysis or their calculation is technically wrong, but the measure of a good place to live is a bit like IQ tests, in the sense that there are no intrinsic, universal values for happiness. Each individual has his or her own priorities. When I started to think about my values, I realize that what I thought was most important to me: my children, my dog, my books, would still not make me happy unless I have my freedom. For me to live in Vietnam, for example, would mean putting up with a lot of petty regulations and interdictions, loss of privacy, traditional social pressures, etc. while for most male members of the Vietnamese diaspora, there is no higher dream than to go back to Vietnam and live like a king, since their non-resident «ngoai kiêu» status and their access to US or Canadian dollars would make them irresistible to the local young, pretty and desperate gold-diggers.
The two toughest cities in the world are Algiers and Port Moresby, both of them places "where many aspects of daily life present challenges," the study says. Among the challenges: high crime rates, corruption, instability, low availability of entertainment, goods or services and a dilapidated infrastructure.
Come to think of it, I'll open that bottle of champagne, after all.
Link: http://www.cbcunlocked.com/artman/publish/article_631.shtml
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Buddha
A Grand Adventure ... Except That it isn't
September 18, 2005
A friend recently asked me what I would tell a young man thinking about enlisting in the military. (He had in mind his son.) I would tell him this, which I wish someone had told me:
Kid, you are being suckered. You are being used. You need to think carefully before signing that enlistment contract.
First, notice that the men who want to send you to die were draft-dodgers. President Bush was of military age during Vietnam, but he sat out the war in the Air National Guard. The Guard was then a common way of avoiding combat. Bush could do it because he was a rich kid who went to Yale, and his family had connections.
He dodged, but he wants you to go.
Vice President Cheney, also of military age during Vietnam, also didn’t go. Why? When asked by the press, he said, “I had other priorities.” In other words, he was too important to risk his precious self overseas. He dodged, but wants you to go.
If you take the time to investigate, you will always find this pattern. The rich and influential avoid combat. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton do not send young men to Iraq. The editors at magazines that support the war, National Review for example, didn’t fight. They are happy to let you go, though. The reason for the All Volunteer military was to let the smart and rich avoid service and instead send kids from middle-class and blue-collar families. It works.
In talking to recruiters, you need to understand what you are up against. You are probably nineteen or twenty years old, full of piss and vinegar as we used to say, just starting to know the world. Which means that you don’t yet know it. (Do you know, for example, what countries border Iraq?)
You are up against a government that hires high-powered ad agencies and psychologists to figure out how to lure you into the military. Over many years they have done surveys and studies on the weaknesses of young males to find out what will get them to join. They know that young men, the ones that are worth anything anyway, want to prove themselves, want adventure, want to show what they can do. Everything a recruiter does is carefully calculated to play on this. They go to recruiting school to learn how.
“The Few. The Proud.” You don’t think that came out of the Marine Corps, do you? These phrases—“An Army of One,” “Be All You Can Be"--come from ad agencies in New York. Nobody in those ad agencies, I promise you, was ever in the Marine Corps. New York sells the military the way it sells soap. It has no interest in you at all.
Recruiters know exactly what they are doing. They are manly, which appeals to gutsy young guys who don’t want to be mall rats. They are confident. They have a physical fitness, a clean-cut appearance that looks good compared to all those wussy lawyers in business suits. They invite you to come into a man’s world. They promise you college funds. (Check and see how many actually ever get those funds. Read the small print.)
And of course the military is a man’s world, and it is an adventure, and it does beat being a mall rat—until they put you in combat. Driving a tank beats stocking parts in the local NAPA outlet—until they put you in combat. Days on the rifle range, running the bars of San Diego far from home and parents, going across the border into Mexico—all of this appeals powerfully to a young man. It did to me. It beats hell out of getting some silly associate degree in biz-admin at the community college.
Until they put you in combat. Then it’s too late. You can’t change your mind. They send you to jail for a long time if you do.
Combat is not the adventure you think it is. Know what happens when an RPG hits a tank? Nothing good. The cherry juice—hydraulic fluid that turns the turret—can vaporize and then blow. I saw the results in the Naval Support Activity hospital in Danang in 1967. A tank has a crew of four. Two burned to death, screaming as they tried to get out. The other two were scalded pink, under a plastic sheet that was always foggy with serum evaporating from burns where the skin had sloughed off. They probably lived. Know what burn scars look like?
The recruiters won’t tell you this. They know, but they won’t tell you. Ever seen a guy who just took a round through the face? He’s a bloody mess with his eyes gone, nasty hole where his nose was, funny white cartilage things sticking out of dripping meat. Suppose he’ll ever have another girlfriend? Not freaking likely. He’ll spend the next fifty years as a horror in some forsaken VA hospital.
But the recruiters won’t tell you this. They want you to think that it’s an adventure.
Other things happen that, depending on your head, may or may not bother you. Iraq means combat in cities. Ordinary people live there. You pop a grenade through a window, or hit a building with a burst from the Chain gun, or maybe put a tank round through it. Then you find the little girl with her bowels hanging out, not quite dead yet, with her mother screaming over what's left. You'd be surprised how much blood a small kid has.
You get to live with that picture for the rest of your life. And you will live with it. The recruiter will tell you that it doesn’t happen, that it’s the exception, that I’m a commy journalist. Believe him if you want. Believe him now, while you can. When you get back, you’ll believe me.
A lot of things in America aren’t what they used to be. The military is one of them. The army didn’t always use girl soldiers to torture prisoners. For that they had specialists in the intelligence agencies. You won’t get assigned torture duty, almost certainly, because the Army got caught. Ask your recruiter about it, just to be sure.
Don’t expect thanks from a grateful nation. Somebody might buy you a drink in a bar. That’s about all you get. Many will regard you as a criminal or a fool.
Wars seem important at the time, but they usually aren’t. Five years later, they are history. About sixty thousand GIs died in Vietnam. We lost. Nothing happened. It was a stupid war for nothing. Today the guys who lost faces and legs and internal organs back then are just freaks. Nobody gives a damn about them, and nobody will give a damn about you. A war is a politician’s toy, but your wheelchair is forever. If you want adventure, try the fishing fleet in Alaska.
Think about it.
No one has sex outside of marriage here apparently. Yet the teenage abortion rate is horrifically high. Everyone seemingly has a mobile phone and a motorbike but the average wage is a dollar a day.
Befriend a local and they will spend their last few cents on a meal for you. They will refuse to take anything towards the cost (and you probably shouldn’t offer) and they will be genuinely honoured to eat with you. You can make a friend for life in seconds. At the same time, if someone collapses in the street, people will walk by. Or worse, stop to stare but do nothing.
As a foreigner the Police will leave you alone. They know you bring money into this country. But that works both ways too. They may not help you when you need them either.
Everywhere is manic with activity yet strangely serene. Eventually your ears will filter out the noise and you’ll fall in step with the traffic. You’ll wonder why it seemed so scary when you first arrived.
I understand that when you think of Vietnam the chances are your first thought is of the American War (that’s what it’s called in these parts – and what else would they call it if you think about it for a second). By all means go to the museums, the tunnels and the rest if that is your thing. But Vietnam is much much more than that.
Seventy percent of the population were born after the war. And the American war was a blip in amongst centuries of other wars. In my experience Vietnamese tend to look forward rather than back – understand the horrors of that war. Put it in context and move on. Vietnam has.
Don’t get too tied down with that communism thing. Vietnam is communist in name only. In terms of the likes of education and healthcare the capitalist country you left is likely to provide more for its people. As for freedom, well don’t expect criticism of the government in the newspapers (or on this weblog for that matter) but you don’t suffer a nanny state here either.
And yes.. the opening up to commerce has helped Vietnam prosper. But don’t forget this is on the back of a rare 30 years of peace. I would guess that this is the most significant factor in the upswing.
Don’t worry about your personal safety. Or at least don’t panic about it. Vietnam is probably the safest place you will visit. But don’t be stupid. Hanoi isn’t too bad but by all account bag snatching is on the rise in Saigon. Just keep things close to you. Honestly money belts are not needed. Stick you wallet in your pocket, like you do at home.
People will rip you off sometimes. They need the money. But that doesn’t mean that people will ALWAYS rip you off. Sometimes the price they say is THE price. There is no need for haggling. Other times you can haggle and haggle to get a couple of cents knocked off. Why bother?
Find out what things cost. Don’t accept the rip off price but accept the reasonable price. And while we’re at it, westerners don’t always pay more than locals (transport aside). That’s a myth.
And yes people are poor here. Ignore the TV shops, the motorbikes, the cars etc. It’s for a (growing) select few. Most people still live in a one room home and sleep on the floor. Remember that.
Learn a couple of words of Vietnamese. Hello and thank-you will do it. It’ll make people smile at the very least. Smiling is important here. Smile when you’re haggling, smile when you’re arguing, smile when you’re asking for your money back. People will appreciate it and actually it’s a nicer way to live. If you’re being over charged make an “oh my god” face, but do it half smiling. They’ll realise they’ve been sussed but they’ll smile back in a “I’ve been caught” way and most likely offer you’re the real price.
Relax…they can smell nervous tourists and it’s like a red rag to a bull. At least pretend you know what you’re doing without being arrogant.
Learn to enjoy it even when things go wrong. They will go wrong. Vietnam is slapstick and bizarre and that is why so many of us love it. Vietnamese people know their country is bizarre. Get stuck in a traffic jam in a taxi and the driver will turn to you laughing, shrug and say: “Vietnam”. As if that is the reason for the madness. Remember, each cock-up is another experience and another good traveller’s tale. Learn to laugh at the problems and live with it.
Oh and they will call you fat. They will ask how much you weigh, how old you are, how much you earn, how much your camera cost. Compared to them you probably are fat – and answer the questions truthfully – who cares?
As Michael Caine says in The Quiet American: “"They say, whatever you are looking for, you can find here.".
It’s true. On every level from beautiful beaches to amazing cities. From boiled dog to bangers and mash. From street food to the Sheraton. How much you submerge yourself in Vietnam is up to you. Eat at street stalls if you enjoy the experience but you don’t have to. Don’t feel guilty if you only eat in top restaurants. Your dollars will still pay for a wage here. Likewise don’t think you understand Vietnam and its people just because you’ve sat on plastic stools and eaten noodle soup.
And there is a seedy underside, and there are drugs, and there is corruption and prostitution. But where doesn’t have these?
There is no where else like Vietnam. People who have been here longer than me, have told me that only five years ago it was all bicycles on the road. Now it’s mostly motorbikes but more and more cars are starting to appear. Vietnam is changing. And although I wish I had seen it then – now is also fascinating. The change is here but McDonalds and Starbucks haven’t arrived yet. Nothing is ruined. Not yet.
You should realise that people either love or hate Vietnam. It is that type of place. But if you at least try to love it then it is more likely to work for you. Come here already smiling and with an open mind and it will be okay. Start to lose your temper over the traffic, the service, the roads or the food and it will only get worse. Nothing works here if you stop smiling.
My final piece of advice is: play the idiot.
Play the big western lump. Catch their eye when they’re laughing at you (you are funny) and laugh with them. Pull a face at the kids.
Leave your ego and impatience behind and it’ll work out just fine.
"There is no slight intended. There are many different scheduling demands on the secretary," a state department spokesman told Reuters. Fifteen of the 17 female foreign ministers were due to attend last night with only Dr Rice and Roza Otunbayeva of Kyrgyzstan absent.
It's not as if the State Department is not aware of the tradition. It was started by Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's Secretary of State.
Dr Rice reminds me of those girls who would rather miss the monthly girls-night-out to stay home on the off chance that their boyfriend might drop by their place that night.
March of the Penguins has become a major hit among conservatives who say that the film offers lessons on monogamy and intelligent design. One reviewer said it was the best movie he’d seen since The Passion of the Christ.
On the right-wing Web site WorldNetDaily.com, an opponent of abortion wrote that the movie “verified the beauty of life and the rightness of protecting it.” And at a conference for young Republicans, the editor of National Review urged participants to see the movie because it promoted monogamy.
In
In an interview with the French daily Le Monde, the film director Luc Jacquet expresses his surprise. "Je suis de formation scientifique, élevé au lait darwinien. Je suis contre toute forme de prosélytisme, et je rappelle que ce film n'est qu'une histoire de manchots. L'analyser en termes religieux, c'est un peu comme si l'on analysait Superman en termes de défense et de stratégie." [I had a scientific education; I was raised on Darwinian milk. I am against all forms of proselytism and I would like to stress that this film is just a story about penguins. To analyze it in religious terms is a bit like analyzing Superman in terms of defense and strategy.] He considers this recent craze as «ridicule et dangereux», quoting from the French magazine Science: « On devrait emmener les partisans du créationnisme voir La Marche de l'empereur pour leur prouver qu'ils ont tort. » [We should take the followers of creationism to see March of the Penguins to prove to them that they’re wrong.]
Of course, whatever Mr. Jacquet may say about his film is irrelevant. Numerous commentators have also pointed out the high percentage of «gays» among penguins. It doesn't matter, lalalala, we can't hear you. The religious crazies have decided that the film encapsulates the main tenets of their faith and nothing, but nothing, will change their mind.
My question is this: does religion make one stupid or is stupidity a requirement for religion? I guess it's the eternal mystery: which comes first, the egg or the penguin?
In mid-January 2004, a team of journalists of the “Weekly Quality Report” program from the state-run China Central Television (CCTV) investigated the production of the Hongshuai Soy Sauce. The Chinese journalists went to the food seasoning manufacturer in Hubei province. They pretended to be buyers and enquired about the soy sauce ingredients. They were told by a manager that the soy sauce was made from the amino acid syrup, and mixed with water, sodium hydroxide, red sugar; hydrochloric acid and other chemical additives...They also learnt that the soy sauce manufacturer purchased at least a thousand tons of amino acid syrup (or powder – the dry form) per month from another manufacturer in producing few thousands tons of soy sauce.
As a result of the preliminary investigation, the journalists decided to explore the source of amino acid syrup. The journalists then found the amino acid syrup manufacturer (a bioengineering company) in Hubei province. When asking how the amino acid syrup (or powder) was generated, the manufacturer replied that the powder was generated from human hair. Because the human hair was gathered from salon, barbershop and hospitals around the country, it was unhygienic and mixed with condom, used hospital cottons, used menstrual cycle pad, used syringe, etc. After filtered by the workers, the hair would then cut small for being processed into amino acid syrup. [http://tinyurl.com/cjv9v]
Human hair makes an alternative to soybeans because it contains the amino acids that give the sauce its flavor. Some say Chinese soy sauce makers who use hair as an ingredient are posing a cancer risk because of the powerful chemicals they use to extract the amino acids from human hair.
Chinese soy sauce manufacturers say they want to continue making human hair sauce because it's much cheaper than using soybeans. But outrage caused the Chinese government to ban the process, although many unscrupulous soy makers continue prowling barbershops for their economic alternative.
"It's not the hair that causes cancer," the soy sauce business insider says, adding that it's possibly caused by MCP, a fluid in the body associated with the breakdown of proteins and increasingly accused of having a potential link to the disease.
China is clearly treating human hair sauce as a problem. Japan bans the use of soy sauce made from anything other than organic proteins, so the animal proteins in human hair sauce are naturally banned.
[http://tinyurl.com/bcrb9]
On the day Pedro Sanjuan moved into his new office at the UN Secretariat in 1984, he had the foresight to unscrew his telephone receiver. Out fell a little packet of high-grade cocaine. When he confronted the undersecretary to the chief Soviet diplomat--really a KGB colonel and the top Russian spy--the agent laughed good-naturedly and congratulated him on passing the test. That was the beginning of Sanjuan's long, peculiar odyssey into the looking-glass world of the United Nations Secretariat.
Pedro Sanjuan had been appointed by then--Vice President George H. W. Bush to a high-ranking UN post. His real mission: to keep an eye on Soviet espionage activities. Over the years, the Russians had managed to install nearly four hundred KGB and GRU agents in strategic positions throughout the Secretariat, and had turned it into a massive spy facility, operating openly and with absolute impunity on American soil.
But this, it turned out, was the least of the problem. Sanjuan soon discovered that incompetence, corruption, anti-Semitism, and outright criminality were rife throughout the UN Secretariat. Among the shady activities that he personally observed or documented were rigged bidding for major service contracts; drug transactions conducted in the UN's parking garage; sale of shotguns and beryllium directly out of the UN building; ties to global organized crime figures; use of UN Information Centers and other agencies to disseminate anti-US and pro-PLO propaganda; systematic theft and abuse of UN facilities and budgets in East Africa; graft and corruption in Vienna; widespread sexual harrassment; use of the UN employee's lounge to plan anti-Israel and anti-US activities by Muslimdelegates; open celebration of 9/11 by said delegates in the halls of the UN; and inexplicable tolerance of all of the above on the part of the secretary general and the US government.
Sanjuan's cast of characters includes every secretary general from Kurt Waldheim to Kofi Annan, and a large number of bureaucratic rogues and scoundrels. Much of what he documents in The UN Gang is absurdly comical. But its seriousness should not be overlooked.
Ultimately, Sanjuan argues, the weakness and corruption of the UN is our own responsibility. During the Cold War, the superpowers conspired to render it a useless forum for international pronouncements and posturing. Now, however, it has become the focal point of global resistance to American interests and policies. Will we continue to host an unholy convention of anti-Semitic, America-hating hypocrites? Or will we take steps to reform this once-proud institution and make it serve the ends of peace, justice, and international order? Only time will tell.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
The United Nations headquarters appears as a byzantine bureaucracy riddled with lazy staff, rampant sexual harassment, hectoring anti-Semitism and flagrant drug dealing in this contemptuous memoir. And worse: Sanjuan alleges that the U.N. library housed the largest KGB intelligence operation in America and hints darkly - with no apparent evidence - that the 9/11 attacks may have been plotted by Islamic jihadists at the U.N. Sanjuan served as policy planning director in the U.N. Secretariat, but his real job, he says, was to "spy" on the organization's inner workings for the Reagan and Bush administrations. It's hard to see how he accomplished either of these delicate assignments, given his bristling, bull-in-the-china-shop approach to the tasks. He loathes everyone at the U.N., from the "pusillanimous" former secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuellar to the security guard he upbraids for not saying "please," and he delights in verbatim accounts of the long dressings-down he metes out to those who step on his toes. "I used a very strong expletive with reference to the Soviet undersecretary-general's mother" pretty much sums up his attitude toward diplomatic niceties. The author delivers a lively, preening, sometimes eye-opening insider's account, but his obvious polemical intent and the enormous chip on his shoulder overshadow his critique of the U.N.'s failings. (Sept. 20) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Appointed to the political affairs department of the New York headquarters of the UN Secretariat in 1984, following a 27-year career in the U.S. federal government, Sanjuan (War) has written a scathing insider's memoir. Vice President George H.W. Bush asked him to monitor the Soviet KGB agents whom he might find working at the UN. He found many, strategically placed throughout the bureaucracy for maximum espionage effectiveness (he describes the UN Library as "probably the most comprehensive intelligence collection machine the USSR has in the United States"). He also found a bloated bureaucracy, offices with similar names and apparently overlapping functions, rampant nepotism, and excessively high contract prices on everything. When he complained to Washington, he found no one interested in taking corrective action, even though, as he frequently reminds the reader, U.S. taxpayers were paying 25 percent of the UN budget. Sanjuan tells his story with both sarcasm and genuine humor while causing outrage. Other recent UN memoirs, such as Giandomenico Picco's Man Without a Gun, have concentrated on UN activity outside of its bureaucracy. Readers with a negative view of the UN will find their opinions reinforced; those hoping that the UN can be reformed will find this account sobering. Highly recommended for its unusual perspective.-Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., NY Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A veteran U.S. government official blasts the UN Secretariat for . . . well, see the subtitle. Appointed by Vice President Bush in 1983 to monitor Soviet espionage activities at the Secretariat, Sanjuan tells us that he immediately began taking notes, so presumably we can take as accurate the many verbatim exchanges he records between himself and folks ranging from general secretaries to Secretaries General. He portrays a culture that sanctions incompetence, revels in anti-Semitism, winks at drug sales in the UN parking garage, encourages espionage (at which the ubiquitous Soviets were especially adept), promotes an anti-American agenda, celebrates nepotism and enriches the likes of Saddam Hussein while failing to execute its fundamental mission to improve the quality of life around the globe, especially in areas ravaged by disease, war and economic collapse. For good measure, he implies strongly that members of the Secretariat implicitly supported, and perhaps facilitated, the 9/11 attackers. The author disdains all the Secretaries General who followed Dag Hammarskjold (1953-61) and argues that before the fall of the Soviet Union, both the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.desired weak UN leaders because they were easier to control. In his view, this was why Kurt Waldheim (1972-81), whose Nazi background was well-known, nonetheless ascended to the highest post. Sanjuan sketches an especially devastating picture of Javier Perez de Cuellar (1982-91), who comes off as an ineffectual fool. There is more than a touch of self-righteousness in these pages. The author speaks bluntly to incompetents, stands tall among ethical and moral midgets, refuses to be sullied or intimidated, speaks harshly of MadeleineAlbright and strongly for John Bolton. One suspects there will be no grateful rush at the UN to implement his recommendations for remediation. Fortunately for readers, Sanjuan is as amusing as he is opinionated, using swift, ironic sentences and juxtapositions to expose the Secretariat's blotches and blemishes. Powerful ammunition for those who wish to reform or abolish the UN.
So, whip out your chequebook!!
Krr..Krr..Krr...Krr..[cricket sound]
Aunt Jenna at The Girl Gets Away (http://thegirlgetsaway.blogspot.com/) describes one of my pet peeves :
«Hey, fat sweaty guy, just get on the damn elevator already.
The following scenario happens to me at least once a day, and it's driving me crazy. I work in a large office building downtown, and there are a bank of elevators in the lobby. If you want to go up, sometimes you have to wait a few minutes for one to arrive. Often a small group of people will collect in front of this bank of elevators, because everyone is waiting to go up. In front of whichever elevator door opens first, a sort of loose impromptu line will form, based on where these individuals had been standing before the elevator arrived. Only, there's a catch. Instead of just getting on the damn elevator so we can all get back to whatever it is we were doing, the men will suddenly stand to one side and wave us ladies into the elevator as if they were traffic cops and the elevator was a bustling intersection with the stoplights out. They would never just get in the stupid elevator, no, they have to make a big show of what gentlemen they are. They will also perform the traffic cop gestures while actually inside a crowded elevator, which is annoying.
For instance, after the elevator has gone all the way down and is stopped in the lobby, men at the front of the elevator will not just step off the elevator and get on with their lives like normal human beings. They will attempt to squish themselves to one side so that the women at the back of the elevator can get off first. This makes absolutely no sense, and I would like them to know that I am not impressed. This is not chivalry, this is Keeping an Eye on the Womenfolk. They are herding us like sheep and we're supposed to be grateful for it. Into the elevator, out of the elevator, nipping at my heels the whole time. It is an expression of control. They decide who will get on the elevator and in what order. From a practical point of view, these exaggerated courtly gestures are completely useless. They serve no purpose other than to express one's joy in traditional gender roles. And oh, they make me feel so special. Hooray, I got into/out of the elevator .5 seconds before some mook in a suit.
If you think I'm overreacting, well, I didn't say anything the first 1,375 times it happened and I've never punched anyone over it, so I think I've exercised a great deal of restraint.»
When that situation happens with me, I would ostensibly roll my eyes, sigh loudly and shake my head à la Mr. Bean, before stepping out and walking away, visibly exasperated. Rude? You betcha! But because I’m fat and homely, what happens more often than not is that those men would step back on my toes or squeeze me with their attaché cases against the elevator wall, in their haste to let the young perky secretaries get out first, before filing out after them, since I’m invisible to their eyes.
And don’t get me going about those morons who would block the elevator doors so that they can finish their conversation with the people who just got off. That’s when I go into a rêverie, where the elevator doors would slam bang! bang! bang! on their heads.
It Was Like This: You Were Happy
It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.
It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.
At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent - what could you say?
Now it is almost over.
Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.
It does this not in forgiveness -
between you, there is nothing to forgive -
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.
Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.
It doesn't matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.
Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.
Bush en manque d'excuses
N'en finit plus d'embrasser
de jeunes enfants noirs
Running out of excuses
Bush won't stop kissing
Little black kids
http://www.tian.cc/2005/09/go-fck-your-self.html
The agent says "Alright, lay it on me."
The guy says, "Well, first the grandpa comes in, this is in the thirties, mind, deals with the Nazis and makes a ton of money off German banking and mining, see. He gets nailed for trading with the enemy in the war, but it doesn't matter much cause by now his family is incredibly wealthy. His son, the Father, flies a plane in the Second World War and later becomes head of the CIA, then later, vice president, and after that, a one term president. He does a half ass job and gets out, kinda sets things up for later. It's the kid, he's the real lynchpin of the act. It gets better."
The agent nods, doodling on his dayplanner. "Please, continue."
"The kid comes in, and starts off with avoiding Vietnam by getting a nice position in the National Guard, see? But he skips out on that gig when he doesn't need it anymore. Then he runs a series of businesses into the ground. He can't run an oil company, he can't manage a baseball team, tries to run for Congress and fails, he does drugs and boozes, has trouble with basic life skills. But since his daddy's Vice President, or later, President, he gets whatever he wants. Gets bailed out every time. He runs for governor of Texas and wins, and sets a new record for executing people. He likes to joke about the executions, too, mocking the pleas for leniency. 150-odd prisoners go to the chair under the Kid as governor. And the Kid is wearing a cowboy hat and talking in a Texas drawl the whole time, even though he's from Connecticut. But it gets better, this is just the start."
The agent nods, dropping his pen. "Umm.. alright.."
"The Kid doesn't just wanna be a governor, he wants to be President. So he runs for President and.. tough luck, he doesn't win. So get this, his buddies on the Supreme Court have to squeeze him in. They push and push, and finally he's President. He doodles around for a few months and then boom! Some terrorists come in and flatten a couple skyscrapers in New York. Thousands of people die, jumping out of skyscrapers and getting flattened in plane crashes, and the Kid swings into action. He starts bombing where the terrorists are hiding, and looking for them. I mean, wouldn't you? But when he can't find them in a couple months he goes after a totally different country, attacking them 'cause they had oil and his Dad had trouble with them ten or twelve years ago. He says it's because this country was the real guys who flattened those skyscrapers, because they'll do it again with weapons of mass destruction if they get the chance. So the audience is right behind him. Now there's a big ass war right on stage and bombs are flying, people getting killed left and right. And the Kid, you'll love this, underequips the soldiers being sent in, not enough armor, and makes them do police functions in a hostile country for months and months and then years after he says we won the war. And we get to torturing the Iraqis, making them stand around with electrodes on their nutsacks, raping their wives and kids in front of them, attacking them with vicious dogs, pissing on their holy books, and the audience loves it, they clap and applaud. A real crowd pleaser, that sequence. But soon the kid has gotten 1800 American troops killed, wounded thousands more, and get this there were no weapons of mass destruction at all, the whole thing was for oil, and they keep lying about it, lying and lying and lying. And now there's tortured people all over the place. Meanwhile the economy's sputtering along, and another election comes up. The Kid wins this one, by a squeaker, 'cause the other guy wasn't likable enough. So people are starting to question the whole war thing, just a little, and the country we invaded is in the shitter two years later, and nobody wants to leave for fear it'll get even worse. And then.."
The agent leans forward in his chair. "NOW what?"
"Okay, big finish now. A category 4 hurricane comes in and wipes out half the Gulf Coast! Just flattens everything for hundreds of miles around. And the levees in New Orleans break, cause the kid cut the budget for them to finance the war, and the whole city is flooded! Now, the rich white folks got out for the most part, but the poor folks, mostly black, get stuck at the Superdome and the Convention Center by the thousands. And get this, the kid's on vacation so they wait for four days, sleeping in their own shit, starving to death, dying of thirst, we got dead grannies in their wheelchairs and dead bodies lying on the streets and floating in the water, godawful spread of disease and filth, looters running around shooting guns, we got no organization from the government, total chaos. And the Kid, the Kid's in charge and he blames the governor for not signing the proper forms, even though she did. And the Kid turns back offers of aid and says he'll handle it, and that's what he does, he handles it right into the ground. So we got 3,000 corpses in New York, 10 or 20,000 corpses in New Orleans, we got 1800 military corpses quietly shipped home in boxes, we got untold thousands of dead Iraqis, we got Iraq in chaos, we got guys with electrodes attached to their nutsacks and piss all over their Korans, we got New Orleans underwater, we got refugees packing domed stadiums and living in shit, we got five years of blood and carnage and the economy in the crapper, and we got $4/gallon gas. Everyone gets up and takes a bow, except of course the mounds of corpses littering the stage."
The agent is completely flummoxed. Just flabbergasted. "So what the hell do you call this act?"
The guy says, with a flourish, "The Aristocrats!"
For the culturally impaired, go read about the original Aristocrats joke: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aristocrats
Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.
Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they're what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there's not an $800 car in America that's worth a damn.
Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.
Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours.
Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say "I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.
Being poor is living next to the freeway.
Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.
Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn't mind when you ask for help.
Being poor is off-brand toys.
Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.
Being poor is knowing you can't leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.
Being poor is hoping your kids don't have a growth spurt.
Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn't have make dinner tonight because you're not hungry anyway.
Being poor is Goodwill underwear.
Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.
Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.
Being poor is your kid's school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.
Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.
Being poor is relying on people who don't give a damn about you.
Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.
Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.
Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.
Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger's trash.
Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.
Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.
Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.
Being poor is not taking the job because you can't find someone you trust to watch your kids.
Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.
Being poor is not talking to that girl because she'll probably just laugh at your clothes.
Being poor is hoping you'll be invited for dinner.
Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.
Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.
Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.
Being poor is your kid's teacher assuming you don't have any books in your home.
Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.
Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually stupid.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually lazy.
Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.
Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn't bought first.
Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that's two extra packages for every dollar.
Being poor is having to live with choices you didn't know you made when you were 14 years old.
Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.
Being poor is knowing you're being judged.
Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.
Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.
Being poor is deciding that it's all right to base a relationship on shelter.
Being poor is knowing you really shouldn't spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.
Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.
Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won't listen to you beg them against doing so.
Being poor is a cough that doesn't go away.
Being poor is making sure you don't spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.
Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.
Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.
Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.
Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.
Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.
Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.
Being poor is seeing how few options you have.
Being poor is running in place.
Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave.| Your Blog Should Be Green |
 Your blog is smart and thoughtful - not a lot of fluff. You enjoy a good discussion, especially if it involves picking apart ideas. However, you tend to get easily annoyed by any thoughtless comments in your blog. |
NGOs are still being held at the borders of NOLA and other affected areas. Refugees are often being bused directly past these staging zones to the processing centers in TX.
Physicians are going by the thousands to the Gulf of Mexico, but they are being turned away in many cases or told to wait at the periphery.
And International Aid? The inmates are still running the State Department.
CNN is reporting that the White House and the State Dept. refuse to say whether they've refused or accepted most of the aid pledged.
International aid listed below the fold ... appreciate the enormity of the Federal callousness. And the good will of the world to Americans.
The US has only officially accepted first aid kits, blankets, water trucks and 500,000 MREs from the EU and another set of MREs from NATO. That's it. The EU and NATO want to give more, but that's all that's been taken in so far.
All help from the UN still awaits the green light from the White House. They have offered medical teams, cash grants, and tents. None of it has been accepted.
The UN has also offered to take the burden off of the US State Department and organize the aid effort, but State has refused that offer.
The OAS stands ready to offer anything we ask for. We've asked for nothing.
WHO has offered the same. Our response has been the same.
The UN Commission for Refugees ... same offer, same response.
Nigeria wants to give 1 million dollars.
China has offered 5 million, divisions of its armed forces, and physicians.
Japan has offered 200,000 dollars, tents, blankets, and power generators.
India is offering 5 million, as well as any requested medicines.
Singapore offered helicopters. The Feds said no, and TX took them. TX National Guard is deploying the helicopters directly to NOLA.
South Korea will give us whatever we ask for. We've asked for nothing.
Afghanistan wants to give us 100,000.
Sri Lanka wants to give us 25,000
Taiwan wants to give us 3 million.
Canada's Navy is still on hold. That's rescue workers and supplies just being held at bay by mild threats of being attacked if they go against the Federal level refusal.
Cuba has offered 26 tons of medicine and 1,100 physicians. He has offered to send it to NOLA. Then he offered to send it to Houston. No acceptance.
Mexico is taking the "Canada route." They have 15 truckloads of water waiting at the border, with food and medical supplies. The Mexican navy has offered to send two ships, two helicopters and 15 amphibious vehicles. All waiting. No answer. 1 million dollars as well.
Venezuela is offering as much cheap fuel as we ask for. AS MUCH AS WE NEED TO FIX THIS MESS. No answer. Chavez also wants to send relief workers with supplies.
Australia's 10 million hasn't been accepted either.
The French are offering rescue teams, civil defense forces, tents, camp beds, generators, motor pumps, water treatment units and emergency kits, two CASA cargo aircraft, a ship (Batral Francis Garnier), the frigate Ventose with its Panther helicopter, and a hurricane disaster unit. France also has offered several aircraft. In addition, the NGO Telecoms Sans Frontieres, which specializes in restoring phone lines and Internet service in disasters, is ready to send a team of experts and equipment. Veolia Environment, which has facilities in Louisiana, has offered to make its local water management resources available. Nothing. Not a one of these has been given the green light.
Germany has offered a range of assistance, including medical and transportation services, water treatment capabilities and aid in searching for victims and supplies. Germany also has said it is ready and willing to "dip into its own emergency oil reserves" to release some 2 million barrels a day for 30 days. Someone try to convince me that Bush isn't trying to drive up the price of oil.
Italy has offered to send aid and evacuation specialists immediately, Italy's civil protection unit said. Authorities have prepared two military transport planes to fly amphibious vessels, pumps, generators, tents and personnel to New Orleans, Louisiana, and other areas. They were awaiting word from U.S. officials, the unit said.
The Netherlands will provide teams for inspecting dikes and for identifying victims if there is a formal request from the United States. It also will send a frigate from Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles to New Orleans shortly to provide emergency assistance, the Dutch government said.
Russia has offered to help with rescue efforts but is awaiting a reply from Washington.
Spain expects to receive a formal request to release gasoline stocks to the United States and is prepared to grant it, an Industry Ministry spokesman said.
Sweden's Rescue Authority said it was on standby to supply water purifying equipment, health care supplies and emergency shelters if needed.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said his country stands ready to help the United States in whatever way it can.
Qatar has offered the United States $100 million to assist in the humanitarian crisis triggered by Hurricane Katrina.
Saudi Refining, a Houston-based subsidiary of state oil firm Saudi Aramco, will donate $5 million to the American Red Cross to support relief efforts for hurricane victims.
Iran has offered to send humanitarian aid to hurricane victims.
In today NY Times, Warren Farrell wrote that despite the well known statistics showing that women are paid only 76 cents to men's dollar for the same work, there are fields where they earn more than men and “only by abandoning our focus on discrimination against women can we discover these opportunities for women”.
AP has now picked up the story.
"Fujian authorities evacuated 286,000 people, ordering boats into port and placing rescue teams on standby, according to the Web site of the Fujian Meteorological Bureau.
Just to the north in Zhejiang province, more than 291,000 people were moved away from the coastline, rivers, aging reservoirs, mountain villages and dilapidated housing..."
Meanwhile in America, Patrick Rhode, FEMA's deputy director, commenting on his agency's performance in New Orleans, insisted that "this has been probably one of the most efficient and effective responses in the country's history."
It's over, people. I pledge allegiance to President Hu. Maybe he can annex us when he visits the US next week.
To all the wingers: Hang your heads in shame, and stfu. A country you still consider "third-world," "evil," and "communist" has bested us.
Posted by NHL at September 2, 2005 11:54 AM»
My blog is worth $2,258.16.
How much is your blog worth?
