My Dad on Taiwan's Ex-President.

Remarks on Chen-Shui Bian's arrest:

"It is about time to prosecute this shameless, low life animal."

heh.

Katie Couric Interview.

Because of the possibility that McCain could have won on November 4, I would not watch the Katie Couric interview because I knew that I simply lacked to strength to continue if I watched that interview AND McCain won.

I finally watched it. OMG. OMG OMG!


And if you can watch that and even consider voting for John McCain, I think we need to have a serious discussion. One that most likely begins with "really?" and ends with "really?"



This pretty much sums it up if you don't want to watch the long version.

Hrm.

I definitely made it onto 3 or 4 people's video cameras last night during my Obamania...and now that I'm looking on YouTube, it's entirely likely that I appear in one of these things...looking very very foolish.

Anyway, here's other people's videos from my neighborhood taken last night...(much better than my camera phone shots)







Totally wild and totally awesome.

The Day.

My outfit for the night.


Exceptionalism Earned.


Union Square, New York



Kudos and praise to John McCain for his classy and gentlemanly concession speech. I continue to think that McCain is simply a good man pre- and post-campaign.

On H's Request...

I'm currently watching the Cowboys-Giants game, and I've decided that I totally hate Burger King commercials. Particularly this Simon and Garfunkely one about some mushroom and swiss burger. I hate them. Consider that a sufficient introduction to a virtual tour of my apartment (which is about 85-90% set up).

Edit: Found the video. I hate this shit. Not funny, not interesting, not anything except stupid advertising people not understanding anything.


When you walk into my apartment and glance right, you see my, uh, room. (It's not a family room, because that suggests the existence of other rooms like living rooms, or ) this is what you would see. Um, if you didn't have any peripheral vision whatsoever. You can't tell from this, but there's room for a small desk behind the black couch...and I'm selling this enormous Ikea coffeetable because it's taking up WAY too much space. (should I "decorate" the brick wall or let it remain?)
Here's the reverse view of that room (you can see Perambula hangin on the left. Oh yeah):So from that perspective, if you turned to the left instead, this is what you would see: the bathroom door on the right, the kitchen (not seen off to the right), and then my bedroom. So imagine you just walked straight until you walked past that little pots and pans rack on the left, and then turned to the right. This is what you would see. (Notice the very dangerous collection of magnet supported knives above the sink. And the Wok, you fucking racist.)
Quick break: I just saw another commercial for a KEANU REEVES MOVIE!!!! I have heard that "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was being remade and have also seen random movie posters, but I NEVER EVER thought that Keanu Reeves might be involved. Turns out that I have yet another reason to keep breathing. Here's to hoping it is even half as good as Point Break.
Ok, and we're back. If you were to swivel back to the left, you would look from the kitchen into my bedroom, and see this loveliness. If you can't see any details of the room or the bed...yep...you know exactly who to ask.

Take two steps forward and swivel back and forth...and this is one end of my bedroom with a bookshelf full of cheap VCDs from India...

Ta da! That's all. And all this in the heart of the East Village. Peace bitches.

A Confession.

It is well-known amongst those who have spoken to me for more than 10 minutes that I have very...hmm... particular tastes. Most notably, anyone who has known me in the period from 1998 through 2004 would have been subjected to my violent fanhood of Björk. (The 9 posters remain in my hands but have been reluctantly muzzled into a cardboard cylinder.) Anyone who has paid closer attention has also noticed that my tastes in movies also followed strange patterns encompassing a wide mix of romantic comedies, the movie Angus, and sitcoms.

In short, despite the fact that I do enjoy many works of music and art that are "genuinely" good, I also have a taste for things that tend to be more guilty pleasure-ish and/or less masculine. And I've never really been very embarassed by it.

But now I've been very regularly following and listening to one artist who I have not really discussed openly because it actually seems to cross the acceptability boundary so far that I manage to feel a little weird about it. Her name is Ingrid Michaelson, and she's basically a lone sorta-hippie chick whose rise to fame began with an Old Navy advertisement, and culminated with inclusion into several Grey's Anatomy episodes. I actually got her album when M. sent me a DVD with like 50 folders of her music, and she happened to be one of them.

I think what makes this musical obsession of mine so embarassing is a combination of factors. First, her music has been featured on Grey's Anatomy, One Tree Hill, The Real World, and The House Bunny (I am partially redeemed by the fact that I have seen NONE of these shows.) Second, she looks like this.(Yumm...look at that burger.) Third, and most dangerously and why I love her music the most...is that she is just a girl singing her heart out. She's not wry and she doesn't have a hip sense of irony or detachment. She just sings love songs. Or life songs. Or heartbreak songs. And her lyrics can tend towards the embarassing in print, but in her songs they can break your heart. Her melodies don't veer into experimentation and tend to stay in the major scales. She knows exactly what she's doing, and her songs are simple: almost entirely bullshit free (musically at least). She's the best of chick-folk-pop-rock. And yes, she has a very very pop sensibility.

The reason I thought to comment on her music, as opposed to any others, is that I just saw her in concert two nights in a row. First, I saw her first show of her tour in Staten Island on Thursday (a place I am never going back to), and then immediately went to Boston and saw her again on Friday, where I finally folded and bought a T-shirt with a skull and crossbones with pink hearts for eyes. And because her live performances were sublime, spine-tingling, hilarious, charming, gorgeously performed, and among the most pleasurable concerts I've ever attended in my life...I figured I'd go ahead and confess my fanhood.

In any case...if you are someone who has been pretty much on board with me for all of my embarassing music and movie and book choices...and love them for the same reasons I do...then I suggest you give her a looky-look. If you don't, and generally spend a large part of our conversations asking how my vagine is feeling, and making comments like "stop being such a woman" and/or "you have terrible taste" then, uh...move along.

P.S. I start work tomorrow.

"Main Street Meltdown"

The word "Economy" carved in ice in the Financial District is NOT an impressive or interesting work of art.

Ok, I'

The Financial Crisis - Part 755: Chain Reactions

I feel increasingly like a doomsayer these days. This is not to believe that I think we're doomed. I don't. I think we'll be fine in the long run. People just seem to think that my concerns and fears are overblown. Granted. But I'll say that things look legitimately bad, and despite my penchant for hyperbole, all of the things I fear are well within the realm of possibility and are a distinct path that we could travel down -- even if actuality decides to go another way.

The greatest fears I have about the financial crisis don't involve the banks, analysts, or Wall Street, the "economy," or even the fate of the U.S. From what "experts" have been saying, this recession may hurt pretty badly, but it's not going to last more than two or three years tops. It's probably not a Depression and it's definitely not the end of the world. It's just a steel toe to the balls: vomit, stomachache, and pissing blood.

I'm really afraid of the consequences of the spreading global crisis, specifically the destabilizing effects the crisis could have on the developing world and on the current strains of unrest and instability that were already skating on a razor's edge. If the connection between economic woes and political destabilzation aren't totally clear to you, consider how Germany emerged from the Great Depression. Or, in other words, here's the chain:

Credit markets freeze (we are here) --> Businesses cannot access credit and slow/fail --> Microbreweries fold --> People become frightened by the lack of quality beer and the economic outlook --> People stop spending and push their money into low risk investments like treasuries --> As investment and spending shrink, so does the economy = Global economic recession --> Recession means there's less demand for cheesecake --> Less jobs --> Social unrest --> Political destabilization --> The Office gets cancelled --> Pandemonium

Or this:

Back to emerging markets: One example that warrants some attention is China. As a starting point, the Chinese financial system is a little more insulated than most other financial systems. China has generally rejected the American model for how to run a financial system, they have $2 trillion in currency reserves, and their banks don't appear to hold the same volume of toxic assets. Nevertheless, they cannot escape the economic impact of our crisis, specifically the fact that their entire economic growth model is export-oriented...and...uh, no one's buying anymore (let alone buying arsenic-based teething rings, plutonium headphones, and turpentine toothpaste.) But long story short -- China's stability is entirely premised upon their social contract: As long as we the CCP keep increasing wealth and filling your pockets, You the people will not require freedom or democracy. What happens if the recession is deep and long enough (the way yo mama likes it) to disrupt that growth? I mean, in some respects, China's growth was built on the back of American credit. We borrowed lots and lots of money and bought a bunch of Chinese shit, and the Chinese took the money and grew at incredible rates. Currently the credit markets are frozen and it's clear that excessive debt is our biggest problem -- now what?

And the list goes on. As demand shrinks and oil prices fall, what happens to the oil exporting countries who depend on oil revenues ? What happens to Russia's currently autocratic stability when oil no longer oozes rivers of cash across Moscow? What happens to Hugo Chavez when his Latin Communism is no longer possibly through the generosity of Hummer owners? Iran's budget is 80% funded by oil revenues, what's next? (Actually, my hope is that these three irritating governments take an enormous bitchslap and are forced to stop operating under the curse of oil.) What happens to Saudi Arabia if the House of Saud no longer has the cash to placate the Wahhabis? What happens when radical Islam is finally reinforced by sustained economic discontent (caused, incidentally, by Americans)? Realistically, of course, China and India will continue to drive demand for oil...but the price drop should still have serious effects.

And it's not just the developing countries, what about Europe? Paris's 2005 riots were substantially about high levels of unemployment among the disaffected African and Middle Eastern youth. What happens when unemployment spikes across the board? The UK was even more debt ridden than the US. Since about a week ago, Iceland's economy has basically imploded -- it doesn't exist anymore. Its banking system was like 8 times GDP, and now it doesn't even exist anymore - it was seized by the government and is now desperately seeking funds for a bailout. Iceland is on the verge of default, which will have a definite impact on the quality of life for Bjork for years to come. In short, Iceland will be Argentina. And, since fantastic news doesn't travel alone, it appears that similar rumblings are taking place in Hungary, Ukraine, the Balkans, Romania, Turkey, and Pakistan (oh dear god). Although I'm getting a little out of my depth at this point, it even seems like the whole Euro and EU experiment are facing extraordinary stresses and are conceivably at risk. (I can't argue too in-depth about this one, but I think you can just try and imagine handing this bailout under a complicated version of the Articles of Confederation.) Europe is an experiment in globalism and multiculturalism to much greater extent than the US, or at least with a mix of far more volatile populations. What happens when a good economy can no longer placate the populations?

Yes, I'm totally seeing the worst case, and I hope that none of this stuff comes to pass. But it looks like even if the most calamitous moment of financial crisis has passed, we are far from done. Hedge funds are beginning to unravel under the pressure of investors pulling out funds, and that appears to be the next sector to be hit. It just doesn't seem like the unwinding is complete yet...which means that the recession that has set in is not getting any better anytime soon. So yes, I suppose I am a hyperbolic doomsayer...but I know enough to know a little fear. That's all. (This financial ranting may end once I get lulled back into a TV coma by my cable box which arrives on Wednesday.)

(h: Are you seeing the effects of the crisis showing up in you or your classmates interviews for jobs? I know that anecdotally there are offers being rescinded and stuff, and that some of my old classmates can't find jobs...but are you seeing it happen down south?)

Lobster Sticks to Magnet

One of you will know this for sure. If you recognize, you win. If you don't, you definitely will wonder why I would post this and question my choice of YouTube posts from here on after.

Election.

I am terrified by the complacency and confidence people have about the upcoming election. Everyone just seems too assured. All the columnists are talking as if the election is over, and it just seems like an enormous set-up for a monstrous lesson in the unpredictability of American politics, race, the culture wars, the reliability of the youth vote, the wrongness of polling or whatever else. Yes, Obama is up. Yes, the polls look good. Yes, people finally appear to be rejecting fearmongering and divide and conquer politics. Yes, the GOP appears to be a sinking ship.

But no, I do not think this election is in the bag. With stakes this high, I cannot be at ease until it's over. There is no amount of polling that will make this Election Day feel like anything but anxiety. I hope the urgency remains and I will be extremely tense until this is over. And I think I will cry no matter the outcome.

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

--William Carlos Williams

Advice on Televisions and The Financial Crisis (Not related).

So I'm very aware that basically everyone here knows or should more about televisions and HD gizmos than me, I thought I'd consult you...or at least one or two of you who seems to understand these things. So seriously, if you have any ideas, respond because this post is not as blindingly self-indulgent as the others.

I have a fairly small apartment, or at least it's small enough that my traditional 32" television is potentially going to eat up half of my living room because of it's huge backside (don't worry, I learned how to navigate sensitivities about big backsides from your mom. Or moms, I suppose.) As a result, as soon as I lift myself out of my current financial crisis, I think I need to take time and invest in a new television.

So looking at my apartment, I'm considering the possibilties.

1) Flatscreen TV: I could just do what people normally do in my situation and shell out for a flatscreen. I'm assuming that for my living room, which is about 13 feet long (estimated by my laying on the floor, marking the distance, and then caterpillaring to that spot to check how many body lengths my apartment was)...I could properly have up to a 96 inch screen. But that's fucking ridiculous, so I'd probably end up with something like a 42 inch. I don't know how much that runs, but I assume if I want to get one that will last as long as the TV I have now (I remember watching Ace Ventura on VHS in the basement of our old house in Michigan on this television while my brother or mother hit tennis balls against an indoor tennis net), then I will probably have to shell out over a $1,000? This is the easy way to go. Let's call this plain vanilla.
--Pros: Simple. Tested. Slightly Cheaper (maybe).
--Cons: Still takes up much more space in an already small apartment. Smaller.

2) Projector: Or I could pay slightly more and invest in a projector and screen goo my white walls. It looks like I could pick up a comparable (720) projector for somewhere in the same price range. Here is the model of projector I am considering: And here's the wall I am considering:
Now you might be very legitimately wondering what the holy fuck I am doing. And the answer is that I'm giving you an idea of how big the wall is. Assuming that the Vitruvian Man (left) is not full of shit, and my wingspan is the same as my height, then that would mean that the wall is just over 6' wide. Although it looks little bit small in the photo, I assure you it is bigger than it looks. (That's what, uh, the other guy said to your mama.) This would mean that I could have a very large screen approaching 70 inches without having to jack up my budget per inch like I would for a television. (yeah yeah, your mom jacks up how much she pays per inch yada yada yada.)

A cooler (pipe) dream, which is probably not allowed, would be to paint a huge screen directly on the brick wall (after plastering of course.) I think that would be cool looking, but I don't think there's enough space for a large screen to be projected.

--Pros: Saves a lot of space. No idea how it will go. Much larger screen.
--Cons: Gotta buy an independent sound system (though I kinda like that). Maintenance. Have to mount the projector. Have to paint the screen. I would have to tape my wii sensor to the wall. That would look very stupid.
--Pros Revisited: But it's just so awesome!

The bottom line though is that I really don't know anything about projectors, so I'm asking you what you think about the plan. Is there something I'm missing that should steer me away from getting a projector? Do I actually need to go 1080 HD if I get a projector? Any one have any friends that went the projector route? Any other considerations or ideas?

h: I outright reject whatever projector methods you used at the Chouse, though I do suspect you have some expertise otherwise...which would probably be offered enthusiastically with an air punch or something like that.


OH...and the Financial Crisis, right. I am posting links on the RIGHT SIDE of the blog which I think are excellent excellent bits about the current crisis. I would call these these things indispensable to anyone or at least utterly fascinating to anyone with the slightest interest in what's happening right now.

1) Collapse of Bear Stearns: I didn't really understand how everything unwound at Bear Stearns except that they basically got blindsided and fucked over by a market panic. This article from Vanity Fair is a tight, interesting behind the scenes look at what actually happened. It includes fiction-like descriptions of the phone calls, events, feelings, and personalities behind the collapse. It also includes fantastic moments like J.P. Morgan execs telling Bear execs that their defenses to the rumors were no longer going to fly, and ultimately declaring "This is bullshit. We're defaulting you." While I admit that the declaration sounds a little dry, it actually amounts to a "Fuck You Asshole! I'm gonna fuck you up! You're Dead Motherfucker! Dead! " Except, unlike two thugs in a street...these are the modern day titans who move mountains. The story's angle is actually trying to look below the surface of what happened, because there are also signs that Bear Stearns didn't actually "fail" but was "murdereed." Which is cool.

2 & 3) Fine, you do not give a shit about Bear Stearns or about the financial crisis: I get it. BUT the other two "Giant Pool of Money" and "Another Frightening Episode About the Economy" are legitimately amazing. They are two episodes of "This American Life" which explain the entire financial crisis in entirely layman's terms. If you haven't really understood or followed the crisis, these two episodes will blow everything wide open. There hasn't been a single person who I have passed them to who haven't come back and said something similar to what I hear your mom say. (e.g., "Wow" "That was amazing" "Oh my god!" "I never knew exotic derivatives and credit default swaps were so interesting.")

But then again, if you don't give a shit...I totally understand.

In any case, I will continue to post links of genuinely worthwhile articles and other pieces I stumble across on the right side of the blog. I will not post any crap up there, so if I put it there...I believe it's worth your spare time. Likewise, if you come across similar things, please let me know...because it's a great thing to find new things that just illuminate dark corners of knowledge you never knew you didn't have. (And if I get rick rolled, I will FUCKING KILL YOU.)

Terrorism and the Elections.

I got into a phone debate with RS over terrorism policy. It was interesting, because I think he actually acknowledged that the true threat is the ideological struggle between radical Islamism and western liberalism (i.e. "White People.) In short, this is a new species of Cold War. The shakeout of the conversation was a consensus that Obama is probably a LOT more "ruthless" and harder at his core than the image he presents: In short, despite his (entirely reasonable) focus on soft power and diplomacy, he will not capitulate and he is not a pushover. The remaining issue is the effect his presidency would have on the Muslim world.

Viewing this struggle as a battle of ideas and containment/ascendancy, we're losing the war. Furthermore, I think the hardline militaristic approach to fighting radical Islamism is actually exactly what they hoped for, and is producing the polarizing radicalizing effects Al Qaeda was aiming to produce. (i.e., Al-Qaeda wanted a Bush victory in 2004 and created it.) Nothing makes Bin Laden happier than hearing 70 villagers were killed in an air raid in Afghanistan. He loves that shit.

Anyway, I stumbled across an article today which discusses the October Surprise thingamajig...and so I've cut and pasteed some interesting snippiets from it.

What makes elections and transitions so attractive to terrorists? After the October 2004 Bin Laden video was released, I wrote here about jihadists' need to leave their fingerprints on big events. These are the seam moments, the points of inflection in history, and the terrorists want to demonstrate that they are central players in determining outcomes. They especially want to show their Muslim audience that they are having a powerful impact on the world stage and are the global actors they claim to be. Do they try to tilt events to help preferred candidates or parties? There isn't much evidence to support that—and the terrorists seem to have some regard for the law of unintended consequences, so I don't think they believe they can act with sufficient precision to ensure, for example, a victory for McCain or Obama.
. . .
That said, jihadist ideology does suggest that even though they despise all U.S. leaders, they know which leader would be better for their cause. There is a thick vein of Leninist thinking running through radical Islamism—Sayyid Qutb explicitly advocated the creation of a revolutionary vanguard of true believers. Another inheritance from Lenin was the notion that a hard-line enemy was better for mobilizing supporters than one who played down animus.

An appreciation for that kind of thinking underlies the argument Joseph Nye made in the Financial Times recently about why al-Qaida would prefer a belligerent McCain to an Obama who has spoken of improving America's standing in the Muslim world and who "would do wonders to restore the soft power that the Bush administration has squandered over the past eight years. That is why Mr Obama is such a threat to Mr bin Laden." Nye accepts the conventional wisdom that anything that turns the discussion to terrorism helps McCain, so in his view, al-Qaida has an extra incentive to act.
. . .
In short, there would be a high premium for them to carry out a significant attack soon, because in an election season, or in the early days of a new administration, there would be irresistible political pressure to carry out an obliterating retaliation. The target for that strike would be the terrorists' safe haven in the FATA, and the result would be exactly the kind of widespread Muslim rage at the United States that the terrorists crave. Few today question that Osama Bin Laden ordered the 9/11 attacks because he wanted to draw the United States into a draining war in Afghanistan. To Bin Laden's surprise, the quagmire scenario didn't materialize there, but in Iraq.

Actually, just go read the Article. My cut and pastes were sorta random.

Pigeon Dodging

Does anyone else ever involuntarily (or prudently, I shall say) dodge pigeons that appear to be flying straight for your face? Not often, mind you...but at least twice. I have the impression that "actual" New Yorkers suppress the dodging instinct.

I feel sorta stupid because it doesn't seem like the other people around me ever flinch, but sometimes I just do this split second head jerk limp wrist block when I suddenly notice a pigeon careening towards my face. The real art, however, is to quickly recover and act as if dodging the pigeon was the correct course of action.

Mostly because it was.

Mixed Bag.

I have a lot of spare time these days. I mean, I've just moved into my apartment in the East Village, which I am pleased as punch to have gotten...but the moving company does not arrive until tomorrow. Here's a cameraphone survey of my apartment, from Bedroom to Kitchen/Hall to Main Room.


Usually when I move from place to place, I am responsible for most of the moving. In the past, that meant making a judgment call of whether to try and cram a 10 dollar stained coffee maker into the space between my television and pillowcase full of shoes in the backseat of my 2004 Hyundai Sonata. (Note that I mention my Hyundai with the same tone another person would mention their Bentley). As a result, I've definitely ended up in a new home with imbalances like excess ziploc bags, 45 cent trash 20 gallon trash cans, but without, say, my $75 dollar microwave.

Anyway, because my law firm paid for my moving expenses, I basically just crammed my ENTIRE apartment in Cambridge into boxes which will be arriving tomorrow and I have absolutely no idea what I threw away and what I kept. Thus, I can't go shopping for new things, and really can't do all that much in my apartment until my things arrive. And in case you're wondering, yes, that explanation of why I have so much spare time was indeed the payoff of that entire long story.

Starting over...

I've been in New York for about 8 days now, and it has actually been pretty rough on the system. To begin, I have been living out of a suitcase for 2 months. That's tiring. Furthermore, I've been living out of a suitcase that is relevant to Turkey in the summer heat, and to Indian temperatures. The result? I've been wearing the same two long sleeve shirts every single day for the past 8 days. Then, my application for my apartment took a very long time, while I was being given the expectation that it would only take the next day...forcing me to check in and out of a hotel every single day. What that has resulted in is me, with a huge bookbag full of leftover travel gear, having no place to go and knowing no one who isn't working, for anywhere from 4 to 6 hours a day...and with very little money. (Actually, my security deposit + first months rent means my checking account is literally empty and all my credit cards are maxed out.)

So basically, I've been wearing the same clothes for a week, dragging around an old bag, and wandering aimlessly in the streets and ultimately sitting in Dunkin' Donuts (or more often Union Square) for hours at a time reading what appears to be a giant comic book. I also lost my iPod in a fiasco during the week, so I don't have the lovely comfort of music or podcasts either. So, over the last week or so, I have probably spent 12-15 hours wandering around town and sitting. (No, I don't feel like going to a museum in this condition.) Currently, I am sleeping on the floor of my apartment in 40 degree weather in my jeans and the same two long sleeve shirts (and a couple of short sleeve shirts) waiting for my bed to arrive.

Moving on:

1) Wachovia took a 23.9 billion loss?!?!?! Holy Crap!

2) The desertion taking place in the Republican Party is heartening. I think there are definitely elements of conservatism and the Conservative philosophy that I can respect, and others that I agree with. I don't want conservatism to die, because I don't think the 1960's formulation of liberalism should be dominant, nor do I think it embodies all of the right values and policy preferences. On a macro-level, I think American political discourse with its structural limitations functions best as a "dialectic." It's a compromise position, but I'm increasingly disbelieving that we can make progress without compromise. I mention my support for conservative ideas mostly so I can follow up and say: Fuck the Republicans. The current Republican Party has to and should die and be reborn. That specifically includes Sarah Palin and anyone who supports her candidacy. Die in a fire. (And be reborn a phoenix, or whatnot.)

3) I finished Watchman. Excellent. I don't really see how it would be possible to really capture the intensity of the whole of it in movie form...anymore than I think any of my favorite books could be capture in film. (read: David Eddings.) I think I have to read it again soon to get a better feel for it...but it was definitely much more engrossing, textured, and deep than I had thought it would be.

Ok. I'm done stealing internet. I'm off.

Watchmen.

As requested, I have begun reading Watchmen.

This oughta be interesting.

Sigh.

I didn't pay much attention to this exchange before because I was basically fed up and enraged at all times re: politics, but just in case you didn't pay that much attention either:

Crazy Republican Lady: [Talking about being afraid of Obama]..."I have read about him. He's an Arab".

McCain: "No, ma'am. No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

There's two distinctly different aspects of this response. 1) The first is mildly reassuring: When you watch McCain on the video clip of this, it is clear he is frustrated and irritated at such stupidity and, probably, like me, simply wishes people like this would go die in a fire. (If you would like to join a "Go Die in a Fire Moron" campaign with me, just call me.) 2) The second aspect exemplifies everything that is wrong with the bullshit McCain campaign. His response to a claim that Obama is an Arab is "No...he's a decent family man."

What the fuck!?!? What kind of stupid shit is this? Let's try this in some other contexts.

"That dude is black!" "No ma'am, he's a decent family man."
"Jackie Chan is Chinese!" "No ma'am, he's a decent family man."

In any case, I feel very bad for McCain. I have never really had a problem with McCain in the past because seemed to be a man of integrity and merely had political principles I disagreed with. I actually pity the old man now because I don't actually believe he likes what he's become and probably disagrees with most of the shit that is happening on his campaign. That being said, it implies that his presidency would be equally out of his control and in the hands of the right-wing moron establishment that has dismantled the Republican Party and expelled all of its goodness in order to pursue irrelevant and historic culture wars to win elections.

Finally, I'd like to basically copy something I found on Andrew Sullivan's blog today (which I don't actually read anymore). It moved me.


"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That's not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America," - Colin Powell (I think this was yesterday).

This is from his obituary, I think.

When it came to a post-high school career decision, there was nothing Kareem R. Khan wanted to do other than join the Army.

Spurred by the Septermber 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Khan, a 2005 graduate of Southern Regional High School, wanted to show that not all Muslims were fanatics and that many, like him, were willing to lay their lives down for their country, America. He enlisted immediately after graduation and was sent to Iraq in July 2006.

So when his father, Feroze "Roy" Khan, saw three soldiers walking up to his door on Monday, he knew what it meant.

Specialist Kareem Khan, 20, was killed with four others earlier this week when a blast destroyed a house he and members of his division, the Stryker Brigade Combat Team, were clearing in Baqouba, Iraq.

An interpreter and 12 soldiers were also injured in the explosion, the Army said.

"It's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy," Feroze Khan, 49, said Thursday night at his home in the Ocean Acres section of Manahawkin.

Khan's faith in Islam is important now to his father and stepmother, Nisha Khan, because they want to make sure people in America know that Muslims like Kareem were willing to fight for their country.

"His Muslim faith did not make him not want to go. It never stopped him," said Feroze Khan. "He looked at it that he's American and he has a job to do."

The last package Nisha Khan, 40, sent her stepson included a necklace that had Kareem's name in Arabic, next to the word "Bismillah," which means praise to Allah.

In the Islamic tradition, last rites must be within a few days of death. Khan's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia is scheduled Thursday. The family will perform traditional Islamic rites at home and have a full military burial.

"Hopefully Allah will understand," said Nisha Khan.

Though his father "spoiled him rotten," according to both his dad and stepmom, Kareem was always a polite teenager, who respected his elders.

"For a teenager, he was a very obedient child," said Nisha Khan.

Feroze Khan's favorite memory is when Kareem used to wake up at 5 a.m. on weekends to accompany his dad at work at a local marina.

"Not many kids would get up at 5 a.m.," he said.

Khan was a football fan, rooting with his father for the Dallas Cowboys when games were televised. He also used to challenge his little stepsister Aliya, 11, to video games.

"He's really funny," said Aliya. "We used to play video games and sometimes we would play with my birds."

Nisha Khan said the two would spend hours sprawled out on the living room floor and sometimes Kareem would try to show Aliya how to do certain moves, and ended up taking over the controller.

Aliya said she looked up to her stepbrother and she was "really happy," when he came with her to class at Southern Regional Intermediate School during his leave last September. Afterward he accompanied her to the school book fair.

"I was proud," she said.

Kareem was a "total goofball," said Feroze Khan. The family used to send two large bags of Starburst candies in his care packages, because Kareem would pick out all the orange ones and leave the rest for his Army buddies.

He was also a big fan of the Disney World theme parks, as was the entire family. They would take at least one trip a year to Orlando, Florida, and the living room and dining room of the family's split-level home is filled with souvenirs from those trips, like a wall hanging of Cinderella, figurines of Mickey Mouse and Disney-themed snow globes.

Kareem was so crazy about Disney World that when he had a two-day leave following his graduation from Fort Benning, Georgia, the family immediately drove to Florida.

As a freshman at Southern Regional High School, Kareem enrolled in the district's Air Force Junior ROTC program. During his one year in the program, he proved to be a solid student and citizen, said Col. Michael Mestemaker.

"He was a good kid. He did whatever we asked of him," he said.

Stafford Mayor Carl Block said his "heart goes out to the family. We have been very pro-veteran in the past, and we'll surely follow this up immediately" by planning an official memorial for Khan.

Representative Jim Saxton, R-New Jersey, received word of Khan's death through Army officials on Thursday. "I express my deepest regrets for the family of Specialist Khan. His service to the Army and the 2nd Infantry Division is truly honorable. It's a sad loss for us all," he said.

Khan went to Iraq after spending a year at Fort Lewis in Seattle. He came home for two weeks in September 2006 and was supposed to be home permanently last month, but his tour was extended through the end of September 2007.

He was considering re-enlisting or going to medical school. He worked with a medic unit when he first got to Iraq, Feroze Khan said, and liked what they did.

When he came home to visit, he was happy to stay at home, even asking his mother, who lives in Maryland, to come up to New Jersey to visit.

"He has so much promise, he could've done anything with himself," said Joe Hawk, 42, of Bayville, who Feroze Khan described as a very special friend of the family.

Hawk said he saw Kareem grow from a little 10-year-old boy into a man.

"When he joined, his dad was devastated," said Hawk, "but I told him you can't fault him for that. His father raised him to give, and he gave his life."

Nisha Khan said seeing the soldier come to tell of Kareem's death was like nothing she's ever experienced.

"You see it in the movies, but you wouldn't know the emptiness of seeing them in your driveway," she said. In her grief, she blindly hit out at those bringing the news, she said. "He promised me he'd come home," she said, as Aliya held her mother close to comfort her.

"His dad is devastated," said Hawk. "Kareem was his life. A father shouldn't bury his child."

The most important thing to know, Nisha Khan said, is that Kareem lived up to the meaning of his name.

"Most excellent," she said.

"Ondu Eradu Muru Naaliku"

Or in English, One Two Three Four

After leaving Bangalore for Delhi (a city for which I have a clearly professed distaste), I began to miss the children and started perusing through photos. Realizing that I had a wealth of free time on my hands, I began to craft a music video out of some of their photos and videos (most of which they had taken after we handed our cameras off.) (You can probably guess which song I chose.)

Here's the current version, which is a little rough and at a low res...but should get the idea across.

The South Will Rise Again.

I am happy to be back.
It is a little sad though. When I was here the last two times, there were 22-24 children. Since I left the first time, one child has passed away, and 11 others were sent away to other places, and the oldest has left the centre to start a job (at JP Morgan no less!) leaving only 11 of the children still at at the centre. It's a little strange because four years is a long time to children, especially as they are entering adolescents...but fortunately they still retain their extraordinary attraction to electronics (most days have different groupings of children surrounding my computer, my iPod, and my cell phone...with me off in the corner beating up on a smaller defenseless child until my violent tendencies are satisfied.
As could have probably been inferred from all of my recent obsessions, we also spent several hours securing the most important ingredient of any successful trip abroad: Buying a scooter. After haggling with a store owner in Lingarajapuram, we managed to secure a BEAST of a scooter. Normally scooters here range from 50-100 cc's, which provide plenty of power for Bangalore's heavily congested and frantic roads...somehow, we managed to find an ungeared scooter with an 167 cc engine, which allows us to propel between cars, goats, pedestrians and cows with impunity. It is fantastic, and I miss riding on these roads...despite the fact that it's perhaps among the least wise things to do in India (other than eat street food, which I did yesterday...mmm Pani Puri enhanced by airborne fecal matter and hepatotoxicity.)
We haven't just stayed in Bangalore though...we also ventured out of the city to local Hoysala temples in Belur, Halebidu, and Sravanabelagola...where we treated my old friends (and their children) to a free trip. While at these venerable old temples, we took in the intricate lacework, brilliance, and marveled at the beauty of the 900 year old temples while their kids, um...Did NOT touch the carvings. ahem.

Oh...and we spent some time in Kerala in the backwaters before coming Bangalore...where I spent 7 hours laying on a houseboat eating food and watching this:

I return to the US