Gabble Musings

Focal Length

2009-06-06T02:07:00.002+03:00

So, I'm trying to teach myself a little bit about photography. The amount of info online is just incredible. After reading this post, I decided to play around with using different focal lengths for the same item. Here are the results:

Focal Length: 18 (35mm equivalent: 27) Exposure: 1/8 Aperture: f/3.5 ISO:1600

Focal Length: 33 (35mm equivalent: 49) Exposure: 1/4 Aperture: f/4 ISO:1600

Focal Length: 55 (35mm equivalent: 82) Exposure: 1/8 Aperture: f/5.6 ISO:1600

I used the automatic settings, and i'm not sure why the middle shot had a longer exposure. There's no question that the closer shot has better detail and is sharper. So I guess the take away here is that you should get as close to your subject as the situation allows.

Focal Length: 55 (35mm equivalent: 82) Exposure: 1/3 Aperture: f/5.6 ISO:1600

Focal Length: 35 (35mm equivalent: 52) Exposure: 1/3 Aperture: f/4.5 ISO:1600

Focal Length: 18 (35mm equivalent: 27) Exposure: 1/4 Aperture: f/3.5 ISO:400

One interesting facet of this last photo is that if you zoom in on the cheekbone of the figurine 2nd from the left, you can see a strange bright green blotch. No idea what that is. I also find it interesting that none of these shots are worth a damn, only because the ISO is so low, that they are all too blurry, although I'd be curious to see if a tripod helps any. I've read that tripods are not useful for digital cameras, but I don't believe it.

For Wordsworth:

2009-05-18T18:08:00.000+03:00

My soul comprehends beauty passing fair,
Fills with contentment at the harmony of a scene,
Cannot but yield upon spying the craft of the artisan,
Yet crumbles when called to create.
Woe to the songbird that has no muse,
Bereft of poetry must sit there mute,
Lacking all power to master the base elements,
Which stubbornly refuse to coalesce.
Perception is not a finer art,
Conferring wisdom upon us for our troubles.
We cannot make what we have not held
And our delight falls wasted after the flood.

Whatever scares you the most, yeah!

2008-11-10T08:50:00.001+02:00

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Funny stuff

Something is Stirring in America

2008-10-29T15:04:00.002+02:00

The last six paragraphs of this post are beautiful:

Back at the rally, after the march had left MLK Gardens, I'd gone back for the car while Brett took photos, and I spotted a very old black man in a sharp Sunday suit walking slowly at the very back of the huge march. He hadn't yet arrived at the voting center, and I decided to find him when I got back.

I wanted to go talk to him, to ask him what this moment meant to him. He was a guy who you take one glance at, and know, that guy's seen it all. I wanted a quote. I had my journalist hat on. I thought, this will be great.

So when I got back to the voting location with the car, I went to find him in the line. Eventually I spotted him, and was ready to walk up the few feet between us and introduce myself when I stopped in my tracks.

A young black boy, no more than eight years old, walked up to this man, who was at least eighty. The boy offered the man a sticker, probably an "I Voted" sticker, but I couldn't see. The man took the sticker and paused. Silently, he looked down at the boy, who was looking back up at the man. The man put his hand gently on the boy's head, and I saw his eyes glisten.

I didn't ask the man for a quote. I didn't need to. I walked over by myself, behind the community center, and I sat down on a bench next to the track, and wept.

If you can read that passage without feeling something well up inside you, well, you're made of sterner stuff than I. (click on the link to see the picture).

Joe the Plumber

2008-10-19T21:51:00.002+02:00

I have to admit, Joe's got me thinking. That coupled with some of the arguments I've read on Obama's tax policy, have made me wonder whether Obama's financial strengths aren't all smoke and mirrors. All I've read of the Joe Plumber exchange was "spread the wealth", hardly a promising campaign slogan.

Well, watch the clip:

Obama really is amazing. He just won my vote all over again (I admit, I have been wavering)

He met the challenge, knowing he was talking to someone who would probably never vote for him, but he tried to talk to him (not use him as a symbol, but actually address Joe's situation) and he stayed with him, for a while, really talking about the complicated issue which are (is?) taxes. (side note: I had a wonderful conversation with My friends Gini and Paul about subject verb agreement related to sentences like this)

Anyway, I'm back into the fold.

Speaking of which: check me out at 3:09

Why Obama will win

2008-10-16T02:01:00.003+02:00

watch this video and you will see why Obama will win this year's presidential election (don't peek at my explanation after the video):

Did you see it? No, it wasn't how well he handles the crowd. It wasn't his quick, light and even banter with the ladies. It wasn't how much like a good guy, smooth, and temperentally ideal for the current crisis he seems.

If you thought it was any of those things that guarantees Obama the win you missed it.

Did you see the gentleman standing slightly behind Senator Obama? Monitoring everything. Moving forward slightly to prep the situation, then hanging back to make sure it all went smoothly? With multiple bluetooth devices plugged in? He is Obama's secret weapon:

Reggie Love!

Obama's body man is Reggie Love.

McCain never even had a chance.

The Tax Man Giveth

2008-10-14T16:59:00.004+02:00

Last year, when I filed my taxes I got a huge refund, so large that our summer plans suddenly opened up because we had extra money to use. I was confused by this because I don't have taxes deducted from my paycheck; an advantage to earning income overseas is that it is tax exempt, except for the payroll taxes. In fact the refund I got back actually exceeded my annual payroll deductions. I couldn't understand how this worked until I read this article in the Wall Street Journal.

I have to say, in general, I am very uncomfortable with this tax policy. First of all, because, as the WSJ rightly says, it is welfare disguised as tax policy, so well disguised, in fact, that I wasn't aware that I was a beneficiary of welfare until I read the article.

Which leads me to my second problem. I don't want welfare, and don't feel I need it. I wouldn't apply for it even if I knew it were available for it. In this system, however, I have little choice to apply for it, since I have to file my tax claims. I'm sure I will continue to take the "tax refunds" I'm eligible for, since I have my tax claims prepared for me online, and don't have much to do with the actual details.

The fact that this has become a way for welfare to sneak back into the system, in a form much harder to resist than the old welfare system. WSJ rightly faults Obama for using this formulation as a way to claim that he is giving "tax cuts" to 95% of the American people.

I do believe in progressive tax rates, but this is silly. If you want to redistribute wealth, then do it above board. Welfare, though is so unpopular that it would never pass. If that's true, then it shouldn't be snuck into the tax system.

On the other hand...

2008-10-06T10:55:00.002+02:00

I was impressed by Biden's performance in the VP debates and thought Palin spoke empty and meaningless platitudes.

WSJ points out some serious problems with the "Kid from Scranton":

We think the word "lie" is overused in politics today, having become a favorite of the blogosphere and at the New York Times. So we won't say Mr. Biden was deliberately making events up when he made these and other false statements. Perhaps he merely misspoke. In any case, Mrs. Palin may not know as much about the world as Mr. Biden does, but at least most of what she knows is true.

Homer's Wine Dark Sea

2008-10-05T10:35:00.002+02:00

This morning I fell into the NYTimes Op-Ed page and found an uncommon richness. Will Self started my morning off with a tasty (if somewhat sardonic) snapshot of Ibiza in the summer

On the horizon the superstructure of a freighter piled high with containers wavered in the heat, never seeming to progress: all that stuff, cars and car tires, dishwashers and dialysis machines — the whole lot being thrust through Homer’s wine-dark sea. The sheer inertia of global commerce began to make me feel dizzy — there was this, and also the sense that with our ceaseless advances and retractions we were in some way mimicking the vacillations of our own culture, with its Promethean thefts always being found out by the aeronautical engineering of Icarus.

I began to worry: would we become lost here in the Ibizan hinterland? Meeting perhaps with other Brits who’d gone feral? A lost tribe, stark naked save for denim penis-sheaths, who called themselves “the Ex” and enacted weird psycho-sexual rituals.

Next, Pinker has an interesting article on Palin's debate performance:

SINCE the vice presidential debate on Thursday night, two opposing myths have quickly taken hold about Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. The first, advanced by her supporters, is that she made it through a gantlet of fire; the second, embraced by her detractors, is that her speaking style betrays her naïveté. Both are wrong.

Then Judith Warner has an utterly depressing piece on the financial crisis:

And those of us who felt, well, like losers, are feeling like even bigger losers, as we shove our unopened 401K or (if we’re double-loser freelancers) SEP-IRA statements into bottom desk drawers and wait for a cathartic burst of schadenfreude that simply refuses to come.

Schadenfreude is impossible because the fat cats — the ones who bent the rules, the ones who pushed the envelopes, the ones who paid lower taxes because capital gains were most of their income, the ones who opposed regulations on the banking and mortgage industries — are taking us down with them.

Just thought I'd share my Sunday Morning reading with you.

Gotcha Journalism

2008-10-02T09:14:00.003+02:00

Katie Couric is obviously in the tank for Obama. :eye roll:

Don't I look like Obama?

2008-09-29T01:11:00.001+02:00

Blog Love

2008-09-28T19:53:00.001+02:00

Chiba has a lovely post about his daughter:

My kid's friend invited her to the Disney On Ice show at the Patriot Center this morning. It fell to me to deliver her to her friend's house. I meant to get up at 7, get her up immediately, get her ready to go, and leave at 8. Naturally, I overslept. Woke up at 7.30 with a start and went looking for my kid.

She was sitting at the table, eating her breakfast. Bagel, yogurt, and a cup of milk. She got it ALL by herself. I was so proud of her. It's a pretty big step for a kid to move into some semblance of self-sufficiency like that. She was even already dressed. I nearly cried.

Sniff

just because you're paranoid...

2008-09-28T19:17:00.003+02:00

This afternoon, I found myself in the strange position of wanting to write a post defending Sarah Palin.

I know, very strange. Until now, I've considered her candidacy, and especially her interviews to be a train wreck that I wanted not to watch but couldn't help tuning into with horrified fascination.

Well, I read an article this afternoon, from Fox news, which was condemning her and it made me think twice about whether or not she was really so bad.

Imagine my surprise when I get home, prepare to write a long post defending her and I look for the article online only to see that it has completely disappeared!

My guess is that Fox suddenly realized that one of its reporters had refused the kool-aid and yanked the story.

Here's the (dead) link to the story: Conservatives Begin Questioning Palin's Heft

I will print my defense of Palin when they put their article back online.

Update: the link has now disappeared from the google news listing, but, as of 7:28 Sunday night, was still on Digg:

My head just exploded

2008-09-26T15:06:00.002+02:00

After reading this:

" . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh -- it's got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."

And the video is even worse, because Palin says this blather with such conviction.

In related news, Palin has decided to evade conviction in Troopergate by employing the Chewbacca defense

Trying to avoid work

2008-09-25T02:04:00.002+02:00

copied from Chiba

* Put your music player on random.
* Post the first line from the first 32 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
* Let everyone guess what song and artist the lines come from.
* Bold the songs when someone guesses correctly.
* Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!

1. See a man standing over a dead dog
2. These twenty acres and one [june meal?] from the alabama trust
3. Maybe you wanna give me kisses sweet
4. Flying in silver bird across the sky
5. She's got her ticket
6. Meet me where the river turns
7. Yo, looking back on the boogie when cats used to harmonize?
8. You call me the rock, I can rock you all night long
9. Give me back my broken life
10. I was not created in the likeness of a pod
11. Sorry, is all that you can say
12. Elevator going up! In the cleaning corridor of the 51st floor
13. Well now its two, there's two trains running
14. There I was one night, just a normal guy
15. There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear
16. I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands
17. Baby Baby baby, what's it going to be?
18. I got the cocaine to keep me the cocaine to keep me home
19. Untie these strings from my heart
20. Unburdened of their passengers the taxis have all scattered
21. Now along about 1825 I left tenessee very much alive
22. Now I don't I used to Now I'm in Now I don't
23. I think I lost it let me know if you come across it
24. I drew a picture of you you and your anchor tattoo
25. When your weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes
26. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
27. When you seem like days to me, no time on my hands
28. Sleeping, always sleeping, you so sleepy you can't even hold your head up
29. Yo yo what's up, yo gimme some of that gangsta ass shit, yo know what I'm saying
30. Our fingers touch upon my lips, its a morning yearning, morning yearning
31. Hey baby I ain't asking what you do
32. Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Housebreaking the Students

2008-09-21T12:38:00.003+02:00

In Socrates Wake directed me to this article, which has a wonderful line about teaching:

“My view is that you really fall into a trap when you start allowing what you believe about your students to dictate how you teach your discipline,” he answered. “Too often these days we end up setting up our courses in light of what we believe about our students and we end up not teaching them. At best, we end up housebreaking them.”

I'm not sure I agree with the sentiment, although the principle is sound. In general, we cannot say that a student has successfully learned, for example, how to write, unless he attains an absolute level of proficiency. This measure must ignore what level they started at. While our students arrive in the class with a variety of backgrounds, skills and talent, they should leave the classroom with some uniformity of proficiency.

It is derelict in the extreme to excuse poor students because "they started off too weak".

That being said, we must first meet our students where they are, not where we would like them to be. I may have a goal for the end of the semester, but I cannot begin the semester losing half the class because I speak in ways incomprehensible to them or use terms that they don't understand.

I, however, would love to explore ways to avoid housebreaking my students.

My beautiful election enters its dark phase.

2008-09-19T14:43:00.003+02:00

Peggy Noonan is well on her way to becoming my favorite columnist. Today's piece just put it over the top for me. I mean:

Bambi is playing Chicago style.

There's a musicality to that line that has been resonating with me all morning.

Noonan also has voiced a thought I've been having for almost a year now:

A final point. Do you ever have the passing thought that the presidential election doesn't matter as much as we think? Whoever wins will govern within more of less the same limits, both domestically and internationally. A New York liberal leaning toward Mr. McCain told me this week he has no fear that Mr. McCain may be a more militant figure than Mr. Obama. We already have two wars, "we're out of army." Even if Mr. McCain wanted a war, he said, he couldn't start one.

The funny thing about this idea is how vehemently my friends, both liberal AND conservative react to this idea.

The Good War?

2008-09-17T15:42:00.003+02:00

This article (hat tip:Andrew Sullivan) reinforces my concerns with our next president, whoever he may be.

While I recognize the national interest in nailing down areas of civil disorder in order to prevent anti-American terrorist from gaining toeholds and training grounds, I wonder whether we could do more good than harm by waging war to control the areas.

Obama has been much more forceful than McCain on sending more troops to Afghanistan. I worry that, bad as Iraq has been, its nothing compared to what a protracted conflict in the tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan could be.

Are we going to end up looking at the Bush years with nostalgia? I shudder to think.

Charles, an introduction

2008-06-02T18:58:00.000+03:00

All the men in my family have messy handwriting. My writing looks like a child’s, big, loose loops, tails that come off the letters in inappropriate places. My A’s look like they have mutant u’s growing out of their backs. My K’s resemble a pair of chromosomes, caught in flagrante delecte. My father’s handwriting is the hardest to read, like a doctor’s prescription. His words are perhaps the platonic essence of the letters, nothing more. A faint hint of the letter, a suggestion of an r, that trails off into another slight bump, it could be any letter, really. Aren’t they all the same, anyway? Reading my grandfather’s script, on the other hand, just makes my muscles tense. It’s amazing how much chaos can be contained within such an orderly form. Each letter, marching down the page precisely, perfectly accurate, absolutely legible. And yet, not a single straight line. Like a wrinkled uniform, hopelessly unable to pass inspection, yet standing at attention, eyes forward nonetheless. His writing has no swoops, no curls, no flourishes at all. The N’s are wrinkled, the L’s uncertain. Each line, painfully concentrated upon, carefully conforming to the standard, and yet abjectly failing the final test.

All three of us, with our imperfect handwriting have tried to compensate for our shameful lack of penmanship. I learned to type in grade school, was allowed to turn in all of my assignments on typed sheets, even math. I moved from manual, to electric, to Apple, to the laptop I now carry with me wherever I go,my crutch, my addiction. My father rarely writes anything, relying on secretaries, or girlfriends (or wives) to take dictation. I college, I would get a weekly letter from him, typed by Diane, who was something in between a friend and a patient. She would insert her own opinion occasionally, comments within brackets, always a few exclamation marks thrown in. Annie, my father’s third wife (so far), was the most recent stenographer. As their marriage worsened, her comments (also between brackets) became more caustic, more critical, less patient. A tottering marriage, mapped out parenthetically. Charles, on the other hand, forced himself to write in his cramped, wobbly script. Everything by hand. He filled dozens of notebooks, kept logs of everything, took notes, wrote letters, briefs, labels, postcards. I have them all somewhere, in leather trunk growing over with green mold, in a storage unit I keep in Michigan. Every summer, I go back to the unit, perform triage on the unit. Throw away anything I can stand to part with. So far, nothing I inherited form him has been tossed. I keep hoping I’ll learn some use for his belongings, the things his (third) wife discarded. When she gave them to me, I only read a handful, mostly the ones referring to times I might be mentioned. Then I boxed them up, to be examined later.. Here in Cairo, some six thousand miles from the place he died, I only have one example of his writing.

I found it on my shelf last week, when my three-year-old daughter was rummaging through our book shelves. It’s on a cream-colored, yellowing photo album, only filled a quarter of the way, with 24 pictures taken on a spring day in 1991. On school break, I was visiting him in Cambridge. He took me on a walking tour of Boston. A few months later, he gave me the album. Here’s a photo of a juggler behind Fanuil hall, perched on a ten foot tall unicycle, about to dropped one of his bowling pins. Here’s one of the old cemetery. The gravestones there are phenomenal. Those puritans really got into the idea of death. Rich, evocative bas reliefs of skeletons with scythes, hourglasses running out of sand, hooded characters with bad intentions. Death is like that, I suppose, grim, taking away what we most desire. What we need the most. The photo album has cute little captions next to each picture. Phallic Tree on Harvard Street. Love under a balloon. His handwriting only beginning to reflect his 72 years. There aren’t any pictures of him, of course, but you can still sort of see him. The wry comments, the choice of subjects, but especially the handwriting on the labels. Cramped, wobbly, totally giving him away, but struggling so hard to fit in.

About six months before he died, just as he learned that the cancer had metastasized, my uncle convinced him to make a record of his memories, for the grandkids, for the family. A bit of history. He talks about cost of tuition, about traveling to Nazi Germany as a high school student. About going to Harvard two years younger than he should be. A 16 year-old, son of a hat salesman. A Jew at Harvard in the Thirties. He talks about anti-Semitism as though he were a history professor, giving us notes for the final exam. Or perhaps he’s telling a joke. It’s so droll, he seems to imply. They had me room with the other Jew on our trip. The German official told us that Hitler had no ill-will to toward the United States. He is proud that, at 16, he could detect the irony of the Nazi’s words. Even in 1936. How clever he was.

I sit on the couch to watch the video with Makaylah. That’s my Grampa. My daddy’s daddy. Grampa Micky’s daddy. I think she gets it. Sometimes its hard to tell. He sits in a highbacked chair, Oreo (the cat) in his lap. At this point, at age 79, with several years fighting cancer, his age shows. His cheeks, always long, now have a crease down the middle. He slumps in a chair slightly. His digestive system seems to be troubling him. There are frequent interruptions on the tape, where, I assume, he had to take a break. Not visible are the morphine patches he was wearing on his chest to minimize the pain. Perhaps the slight glaze in his one good eye is the only evidence of the influence of the drug.

The last stop on our Boston tour was Harvard yard. We walked across the quadrangle, stopped at a statue of John Harvard. Grampa explained to me, with pleasure, how there were at least three things wrong with the statue, historically speaking. He told me about his first semester as a Harvard student, showed me his dormitory. Enjoyed pointing out how strict they were about propriety, an unaccompanied girl may only be in the room before 7pm, the door must be open in excess of one foot. He described in detail the logistics of the dorms. The cost of tuiton, how often the maids came in to clean. How big the suites were. There are three pictures of Harvard in the photo album, one of historically offending statue, another of a Henry More sculpture, and finally he put a picture of a couple, a balloon over their head, sitting at the entrance to building, on top of a broad flight of steps, holding hands and kissing.

Makaylah and I sit together on the couch watching him tell about his time at college. About the isolation he felt, too young, too ethnic, blind in one eye (and thus, an awkward athlete). Completely unable to cultivate the effortless sense of belonging that draped off of his classmates. Makaylah loves the video. Its Grampa Mickey’s daddy, Daddy’s grampa, the magical algorithms at play here, mysterious relationships at once static and dynamic, completely entrance her. She has no idea of what he means by alienation. I sit on the couch with her, my arm draped over her shoulders. I don’t know if it’s to snuggle or to protect, to hold her close to me, or keep her far from everyone else. ….

How he once got invited to a mixer, but it must have been by accident. Case of mistaken identity, maybe just a joke, invite the jew. For him, it is a non-story, something to mention in passing, another funny story. For me, it is a coda to his entire life, and by extension, to mine. I imagine him, crossing the quad, dressed nervously in a garish jacket, maybe a bow tie. Thick glasses between him and the world. At the door, a few guys are smoking, a habit he never picked up. They are taking sips from a paper cup. He’d love to be offered some, waits for a moment, but passes on after their conversation stops. He enters the party hall, knows no one. Crosses to the drink table, pours himself some juice. Has a bite of a brownie. Notices a guy from his labor law class, tries to think of something to say, nothing comes to mind. It is unnerving to be motionless at a party, though. Either you are engaged in raucous conversation, making bawdy jokes, or you are moving through the crowd, looking for your set. I imagine he walked through parties the way I do, sweaty palms, moving from room to room, pausing long enough to rest, catch a snatch of someone else’s conversation, but not long enough for anyone to notice you. Notice that you don’t belong. Eventually, the illusion of fun becomes completely untenable, and you can slip outside, back into the dark, back to the lonely dorm room.

At least, that was what my college parties were like. Sweaty palms, no conversation, nothing to say, really, but a desperate need to fit in, to be funny, liked, admired. I assume it was the same for him. My daughter sits there on the couch with me, totally entranced by her great-grandfather’s image on the television. She’s too young to have messy handwriting, to young to notice she doesn’t fit in. But I see her in groups, already leaning to the outside, and I cringe.

A Typical Day at the Moos House

2008-06-01T20:30:00.002+03:00

Of course, this video is several days ago, a time which will be known henceforth as her pre-walking stage.

You can tell I wasn't the camera operator by its non-avant-garde angles and traditional orientation, how cliche!

Mark your calendars

2008-06-01T19:24:00.001+03:00

Its official, my girl can walk! For the record, she has managed more than two steps at a time, but we were unable to recreate the results in the lab.

In defense of LOLcats

2008-05-31T11:08:00.002+03:00

Shirky writes:

I was talking about World of Warcraft guilds, and as I was talking, I could sort of see what she was thinking: "Losers. Grown men sitting in their basement pretending to be elves."

At least they're doing something.

Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan's Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don't? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn't posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. Now I had an ironclad excuse for not doing those things, which is none of those things existed then. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. Now it's not, and that's the big surprise. However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it's worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter.

And I'm willing to raise that to a general principle. It's better to do something than to do nothing. Even lolcats, even cute pictures of kittens made even cuter with the addition of cute captions, hold out an invitation to participation. When you see a lolcat, one of the things it says to the viewer is, "If you have some sans-serif fonts on your computer, you can play this game, too." And that's message--I can do that, too--is a big change.

This article, while quite interesting, has the danger of being an elaborate rationalization of behavior. I'm not convinced that what I do (for hours and hours on end) on my laptop is categorically different than what I did (for hours and hours on end) with my TV in the 80s.

Occasionally, I post something on the blog, write on someone's wall, send a brief message, post a photograph, correct a piece of misinformation on Google earth. So, in that sense, it is active, rather than passive, but the majority of time I am sifting through large pieces of information which is irrelevent to my daily existence. I no more need to know the origins of the word hookah, than I need to know the theme song to Silver Spoons.

Still, I find this article comforting and reassuring. I guess that's what a good bottle of gin should do.

Ouch!

2008-05-30T00:38:00.000+03:00

Um, this is funny, I guess:

But, your honor, I'm an orphan!

2008-05-25T23:14:00.003+03:00

Harris at Politico nails it:

This weekend’s uproar over Hillary Rodham Clinton invoking the assassination of Robert Kennedy as rationale for continuing her presidential campaign is an especially vivid example of modern journalism as hyperkinetic child — overstimulated by speed and hunger for a head-turning angle that will draw an audience.

The truth about what Clinton said — and any fair-minded appraisal of what she meant — was entirely beside the point.

A few lines down:

The RFK remarks were deep in a 20-minute clip of an otherwise routine conversation. Then, once we actually got to the relevant portion of the video, it was hardly an electric moment.

Clinton does indeed mention the Kennedy assassination, speaking in a calm and analytical tone: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”

Martin and I both thought we saw a slight twinge in Clinton’s facial expression, as though she recognized she had just said something dumb.

Whether she recognized it or not, she had.

But it was also clear that Clinton’s error was not in saying something beyond the pale but in saying something that pulled from context would sound as if it were beyond the pale.

It would be a big story if Clinton said something like this: “Hey, I know it looks bad for me now. But, think about it. Obama could get shot and I’d get to be the nominee after all.”

It is a small story if Clinton said something like this: “Everyone talks like May is incredibly late, but by historical standards it is not. Think of all the famous milestones in presidential races that have taken place during June.”

It seems pretty obvious that the latter is what Clinton meant, and not too far from what she actually said. It was not surprising that the Argus Leader’s executive editor, Randall Beck, put out a statement saying, “Her reference to Mr. Kennedy’s assassination appeared to focus on the time line of his primary candidacy and not the assassination itself.”

But where Harris gives us a brilliant demonstration of Chutzpah, at the end of the article, is where he smacks down the msn, for following his lead!!

The revival of Soul?

2008-05-13T23:55:00.002+03:00

Brooks describes the pushback against a militant materialism in an interesting article this morning:

First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is.

Its a bit strange to see the things I've believed for 20 years start to creep into the mainstream. I'm not really sure how I feel about it.

The alternative not so bad...

2008-05-12T22:33:00.002+03:00

I really am happy about both our presidential choices this year:

Of course it says a lot when simply being against torture counts as moral excellence.

Competition

2008-05-04T21:30:00.002+03:00

Hmm, apparently, Andrew Sullivan has another reader here in the big mango.

The game is on, sir (or madam), the game is on.

Avert your eyes

2008-04-29T00:55:00.001+03:00

Seriously, if you are at all prone to queasiness or have a delicate temperament, or plan on eating soon, or have eaten recently, just click away.

Don't say I didn't warn you....

Really, this is not for the faint of heart.....

I'm very sorry. I tried all I could to prevent myself from publishing this picture, which, for the record, is of a green smiley face sticker which appeared this evening in my youngest daughter's poop, but the dark forces of my soul just could not be resisted.

I made it!!!

2008-04-26T19:25:00.002+03:00

Man, Sully just made my day!!! I take it all back!

I can die happy now.

If this one didn't work...

2008-04-23T22:52:00.002+02:00

I've wanted to get one of my pictures up on Andrew Sullivan's blog forever now. I've sent in about three shots, none of which made the grade. The last one, at least earned some sort of public responce.

I have to admit, I don't really get what he's looking for, but I got what I thought was a perfect shot:

This was taken on Passover, from the Sinai, looking out onto the Gulf of Aqaba and Saudi Arabia. Sully didn't bite. Fucker.

Obama on Sunday

2008-04-14T12:43:00.000+02:00

Man, this guy is effective:

Obama four years ago

2008-04-14T12:34:00.000+02:00

Why I'm looking forward to this November

2008-04-10T12:52:00.002+02:00

Two candidates, both elevating the discourse.

It would be nice if they were able to shame their supporters into doing the same.

My guess is, though, that they'll be plenty of demonization, from both sides, however.

This is a good sign, though

Wacky drug experiments

2008-04-07T12:05:00.001+02:00

Do the test

2008-03-18T23:44:00.000+02:00

Two Lectures

2008-03-16T12:41:00.003+02:00

As promised, here's the link for the Lawrence Wright lecture on Al Qaeda. Also check out the Naomi Wallace lecture above it on political writing called "How not to abide". I fell asleep during her lecture, but I had VERY interesting dreams.

Negative ads

2008-03-10T20:23:00.000+02:00

Blue Brain

2008-03-08T23:00:00.001+02:00

Not sure whether I should be excited or terrified at the prospect of this:

Blue Brain scientists are confident that, at some point in the next few years, they will be able to start simulating an entire brain. "If we build this brain right, it will do everything," Markram says. I ask him if that includes selfconsciousness: Is it really possible to put a ghost into a machine? "When I say everything, I mean everything," he says, and a mischievous smile spreads across his face.

Spoiler Alert

2008-02-28T11:50:00.000+02:00

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Quote of the Day

2008-02-27T01:27:00.004+02:00

"Its hard to become a terrorist if your girlfriend won't let you."

-Lawrence Wright, explaining why separating boys from girls leads to extremism at a lecture in Oriental Hall this evening.

I'll link to the podcast of his speech as soon as the University posts it. I can safely say that he gave the most thought provoking speech I've heard in years.

The fact that a pulitzer prize winning author graduated from my program and held my job 35 years ago gives me hope.

Update: here's the link for the lecture. Also check out the Naomi Wallace lecture above it on political writing called "How not to abide". I fell asleep during her lecutre, but I had VERY interesting dreams.

Some pictures of the girls

2008-02-26T21:35:00.001+02:00

I need to put it on the record that if my older daughter would spend less time taking all her clothes off, I would be able to put more pictures of her online.

Quote of the Day

2008-02-12T16:35:00.000+02:00

Truer words were never spoken:

Because people are flesh and blood, not circuits and spreadsheets, and we need hope and inspiration every bit as much as we need 10-point programs.

Which unfortunately makes us go weak in the knees for saints and charlatans alike.

Maybe this not the way it should be, but it is the way it is, and as proud members of the Reality Based community we need to accommodate ourselves to the fact that human nature is a force every bit as real and formidable as gravity.

If you do not understand this, you will never understand politics.

Also you will never get laid.

Shame on You

2008-01-24T08:07:00.000+02:00

Well, based on everything I've heard and read, this entire diatribe is utter BS, but GODDAMN he's good!! Almost makes me sorry this isn't true.

Can Obama compete against this? Dear God, I hope so.

Ebenezer

2008-01-23T09:07:00.000+02:00

I don't really have much to say these days, sorry. Here's a video of what's inspiring me these days, though:

2007-12-13T20:46:00.000+02:00

I love that cowbell!!

Spinning Girl

2007-10-15T20:44:00.000+02:00

She spins clockwise for me, but after a few minutes, I could get her to go either way at will. After a few more minutes, I could also get her to to spin from four to seven.

Another link from Andy (yes, Chris, I AM that familiar. Once I've been reading your stuff every day for six years, you might become chrisy, who knows?)

Say No to Nightmares

2007-09-17T21:54:00.000+02:00

This guy is the real deal. Hat tip to Andrew

He reminds me of a young Oscar Brown Jr.

Amen to that

2007-09-03T12:15:00.000+03:00

I've been feeling uncomfortable about this story ever since it came out, but was unable to enunciate why. This op-ed piece from the IHT manages to put my vague feelings into words. Money quote:

Public sex is certainly a public nuisance, but criminalizing consensual acts does not help. "The only harmful effects of these encounters, either direct or indirect, result from police activity," Humphreys wrote. "Blackmail, payoffs, the destruction of reputations and families, all result from police intervention in the tearoom scene." What community can afford to lose good citizens?

And for our part, let's stop being so surprised when we discover that our public figures have their own complex sex lives, and start being more suspicious when they self-righteously denounce the sex lives of others.

I get the sense that many Democrats are capitalizing on the story because it makes a Republican look bad. But using bigotry for partisan gain is just as ugly from both sides of the aisle.

When the NYTimes....

2007-08-16T17:46:00.000+03:00

....dogs out the semicolon, you know there's going to be trouble:

I spend a lot of time trying to get writing students to understand that the words we use for feelings — “happy” and “sad” and “stoked” and “sketchy” — do a terrible injustice to the subtlety of our actual emotions. And yet here is a language, native to I.M., in which people routinely communicate using emoticons — those little punctuation-faces. I’m not saying that I have actually used an emoticon. But as long as I I.M., the possibility exists, and I find it a little chastening. The one good thing to say about emoticons — especially the winking happy face — is that it offers the only legitimate use of the semicolon outside academic writing. (Times Select)

I have to teach students how to use the damn thing and, as far as I'm concerned, it should be abolished for the pretentious anachronistic throughback that it is.

2007-08-07T06:48:00.000+03:00

The Eternal Question:

2007-06-13T19:40:00.000+03:00

Man: Would you rather have a hat made of spiders or penises for fingers?

New Camera

2007-06-11T07:13:00.000+03:00

My arrival in Michigan coincided with my new camera arriving, so, in lieu of any posts, go to my photos for the last two weeks in photos.

Mk & J part 2

2007-05-16T23:10:00.001+03:00

Just an extra few clips because you tube will only let me post 100 mb clips

The MK&J show Part 1

2007-05-16T23:01:00.000+03:00

It's about seven minutes of them riffing on puppets. Probably only worth watching if you're absolutely in love with both of them.

I've watched it four times so far.

El Chivo Esta Muerto

2007-05-14T10:30:00.001+03:00

From February 14th, 1994, to February 14th, 1995, I was under the tutelage of a guru, the likes of which I will never see again.

Last night, as I was giving my Grad students a reading exam on the population figures and migration policy in Colorado and New Mexico, I absent-mindedly typed the name of my first guru into Google.

It was a random thing, something I have done once or twice, with no luck whatsoever. John, understandably, has no web presence at all. Except for the work of some of his more prominent students, he barely has any presence outside of the personal relationships of the hundreds of lost souls who he’s saved through his simple teachings (myself included).

Google responded with his LA Times obituary, published two days ago.

John was a complicated man, who struggled with many demons and, in his 78 years had lived through many, many adventures. He had been a blackjack dealer in Reno, a soldier in the Mexican Army, a billboard painter, a gold mine operator, a newspaper reporter, and, for the last 40 years, a leader of an Ashram in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas.

My mother was one of the founders of the Ashram. John told me that she had met him in Reno, where he was a hard drinking, well-connected blackjack dealer. She pestered him with spiritual and philosophical questions so much, that he was able to turn his life around, go back to the path he had abandoned, and open up a refuge for the many lost young people who were drifting around in the late sixties and early seventies. My mom and a few other wise women provided the nurturing, John provided the teaching. Among many others, my dad drifted in. Years later, John and others in the community provided hospice care and a refuge for my dying mother when my father was unwilling, or unable, to do so.

Despite the wisdom and compassion John exuded, he never lost his hard edge. When I drifted in at age 20, John had a nine millimeter Beretta tucked into a black leather fanny pack he carried at all times. He considered himself more of a Kshatriyas than a Brahman and, in addition to the weekly Satsang, he occasionally gave self-defense classes. He had also been a serious fencer when he was younger, and had a cool set of foils and epees, which I could never get any of the other students to practice with.

I remember one of these classes, which were mostly geared towards the smaller women in the group, where I was having a problem with a technique that required me to be smaller than my attacker. I asked him what I should do if I was too big to duck under his arm. He looked at me pointedly and said, “Punch him in the face.”

I received most of my instruction and one on one guidance from other senior students of John’s, but I cherish the time we did have together. For a few months, he let me pay off the loan the group had given me to get started in the area (I had arrived with absolutely nothing to my name at all, and they gave me enough to pay rent for a month and get groceries) by acting as his gopher for his various work projects around the compound. I hauled cement, hammered nails, worked the skilsaw and basically picked up the stuff that he, already weak from an earlier heart attack, wanted put somewhere. I learned more from his offhand remarks during the day than from any other person, before or since.

I want to write forever, honoring the man who changed my life so much, who really saved me, who is responsible in innumerable ways for the person I have become. Thousands of pieces of advice, stories of his teachers, stories of his life and, what I treasured most of all at the time, stories of my mother, all fit into that one year of my life. I left the valley a year, to the day, of my initiation. Outwardly, not much changed at all, inwardly, an entirely new person, not yet wise, but at least better able to see the path. His final advice, inscribed in my most cherished book:

“Learn to know the Truth, and then, when you need it, the Truth will know you”

Instead of an Actual Post:

2007-05-08T15:12:00.000+03:00

Which God or Goddess are you like? Your Result: Buddha You are Buddha. You are a very peaceful person, you love all who love you. You are a cheerful personality, and you have a great sense of humor. Congratulations!! You are Buddha!!
Jesus
The Christian God
Goddess Bast
Goddess Sekhemet
You are your own God or Goddess
God Zeus
Satan
Which God or Goddess are you like? Make Your Own Quiz

(somebody should tell them they mispelled Buddha!)
Edit: I love being able to edit html code!

But Where Does She Poop?

2007-04-30T00:18:00.000+03:00

If she can provide a satisfactory answer to that question, I might have solved my summer residence issue.

I Write like a Girl!

2007-04-28T21:38:00.000+03:00

Well sometimes:

Female Score: 1852
Male Score: 1446
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: female!

Female Score: 624
Male Score: 1204
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

Shame

2007-04-26T23:09:00.001+02:00

I’m not sure if I hate groups because I was never welcome, or if I was never welcome because I hate groups. Either way, I find the company of others to be painful, and fraught with shame.
I remember fifth grade recess most vividly, especially in the Spring. All the boys, and some of the girls, would somehow know what the activity was going to be for recess. Most likely, while they were at the table eating lunch (to which I was not invited) the cool kids would hold council and select a sport. I would spend the first few minutes of recess navigating the yard for the crowd of activity.
Wall ball was my favorite, a tennis ball, or sometimes a racquetball (more bounce) would be thrown against the wall, whoever caught it would try to peg the thrower before he could touch the wall. If you dropped it, you also had to touch the wall before you got hit with the ball. I doubt I was very good at it; I wasn’t good at any sport, but at least I couldn’t be excluded from it. It was a democratic, egalitarian sport.
The team sports, however, where hierarchical. Captains were chosen, usually Danny and Brian, both rich kids with athletic grace. They would take turns picking teammates. Eric, Scott, Matt, and Mike R. would usually get chosen first. Then the second tier, the kids who weren’t as popular, but had some athletic skill. Then the weak kids, and the girls who wanted to play would get chosen. The weakest girl, Karen, and I were always left till last. They would grudgingly choose her, then me. Of course, this was if there were an even number. Otherwise, I was sent away, off to play on the swings, or the sand lot. Somehow, I never stopped hanging around, hoping I would be allowed to play. That was basically how fifth grade went for me.
Starting in sixth grade I began to develop some defense for the raw pain. Early on, it was mostly expressed in violence. I got in dozens of fights that year, spent hour after hour first in detention and then day after day in suspension. Then I started playing hooky, which resulted in more suspensions. The next year, I went to private school, where things weren’t really much better.
It wasn’t until high school, where I found a persona of detached aloofness, that I managed to really find a place for myself. Of course, my persona wouldn’t accommodate a person who strived athletically so I mocked sports and the general culture of it. I was so convincing that I didn’t even recognized it as a defense. I thought jocks really were stupid, sports were a waste of time, and teamwork was how the “man” kept the sheep in line. Suckers.
Sometime in my twenties, I began to understand how good athletic exertion could feel. I began with individual activities, running, bicycling, cross-country skiing. Then moving into Aikido, where movement is semi-choreographed with a partner, I began to understand the fullness of exertion coupled with camaraderie. Even to the changing in the locker room, joking about what had been done, or was about to be done. I still felt like an outsider, but I had really glimpsed the world of the jock, it seemed within my grasp.
A number of knee injuries later, and the limitations of living in Cairo (and being a family man), my athletic life had nearly disappeared. My weight, and general health have been really suffering because of it. I’m becoming a fat man, something that, because of my dad’s history with weight problems, really terrifies me. Last December, I began playing ultimate Frisbee a few times a week. Its a good bunch of folks who play, a mixture of Egyptians and foreigners, older and younger, and a variety of skills. I’m not very good, and really, really out of shape, but I’ve felt really welcome.
Until the last few weeks, that is. Lately, I’ve begun to really notice how bad I am at the game. Its very strange; I shouldn’t be as bad as I am. I’m a big person with a good reach, can throw and catch pretty well, and, while I’m not very fast, I’m gradually getting better. But somehow, I feel I’m exceptionally bad, and I can’t figure out why. For a while, in the beginning, I chalked it up to not understanding the strategy of the game, but, after five months, I’ve got at least a rudimentary handle on that. It must be something else, but I don’t know what it is.
Yesterday, this all came to a head when one of the older players began yelling at me on the field, first for not catching a pass he had thrown badly, and then a few minutes later for not playing defense well enough. He’s an older guy, who’s usually pretty nice to me, though he does spend a lot of time telling everybody on his team what they’re doing wrong (although its never his fault, of course). I’ve found him annoying in the past, but, since he’s rarely directed it at me, or at least not much, I’ve just ignored him.
Yesterday, my sensitivity at not playing well, combined with his harshness and I took him aside to have a talk. I told him to lay off of me a bit, that I was getting frustrated with his comments. He responded by really getting in my face and complaining that I wasn’t putting any effort forth. This went back and forth for a while until I, satisfied I had gotten my message across, and sure that he wasn’t going to acknowledge me, went back to playing. I wonder how the other players on the team viewed this. We had our argument in the middle of the field; I’m sure everyone was watching, but nobody mentioned it. He’s definitely one of the cool kids, and I’m, as usual, on the outside, so I’m not going to push it.
Now, the rest of the game, he left me alone, and I actually was playing pretty well. But I just felt, and feel so angry. I’m on the outside again. Never one of the in group. It’s the same in everything I do. It makes me want to cry. I’m thirty-three years old. My life, in general terms is pretty damn good. I have an amazing wife, a job that I love more than I ever thought possible, my daughter is a wonder and a joy that grows everyday and I’m blessed to have another on the way.

Tonight, however, I’m lying awake, wracked with anger. My chest is tight with tension and I can think of nothing but the tournament we’re having next week. Oh, I want to beat him so! I want to win! But the fact that I’m sitting here, dreaming for this, means I’ve already lost.

Kafka Eat Your Heart Out

2007-04-02T23:41:00.000+02:00

This afternoon I tried to find out how much a month to month DSL connection would cost. Most of the major brands had extremely unimformative websites, so imagine my delight when EarthLink offered the option of chatting live with a sales rep.

Cue the groans:

Thank you for choosing our secure EarthLink Sales chat. All agents are currently assisting other customers. Thank you for your patience. You are number '1' of '1' customers in line. Your estimated wait is '0' minutes and '5' seconds.Hello and welcome to Earthlink's secure live Sales chat. You are chatting with Jenny K..
Jenny K.: Hello. How can I help you today?
Jonah: hi, I want a quote on high speed internet access for two months, no plans
Jenny K.: Great, I can help you with that.
Jenny K.: Do you already have an account with us?
Jonah: no
Jenny K.: To do a check for service I will need your full name, phone number and complete physical address at that location.
Jonah: I don't have an address yet, I'll be renting a place in Bay City, Mi for July and august
Jenny K.: I will need the complete address and the phone number to check for the availability of High Speed at your location.
Jonah: can you just tell me what the price is?
Jenny K.: There are different offers for different locations, so I won't be able to give you the exact prices.
Jenny K.: Would you like to go for a Dial Up service?
Jonah: well, I know it will be in area code 48706
Jonah: no, I want dsl
Jenny K.: What company do you pay for local land line telephone access?
Jonah: so far, none
Jenny K.: Who is the local cable provider in your area?
Jonah: I don't know
Jenny K.: I will need a phone line to connect to the High Speed DSL service
Jonah: ok
Jonah: how much do you charge for the service?
Jenny K.: There are different charges.
Jonah: what are they?
Jenny K.: They start from 12.95/mon for the first six months and thereafter it is $29.95/mon.
Jenny K.: The DSL service has a contract of 12 months.
Jonah: how much for month to month
Jenny K.: You will have to monthly pay for the DSL service. But there is a contract of 12 months.
Jonah: how much if I only want the service for 2 months?
Jenny K.: We won't be able to provide the service for 2 months.
Jenny K.: As there is an agreement with this service.
Jonah: look at my first question on this chat, why didn't you answer it immediately?
Jonah: you just wasted both of our times
Jonah: bye
Jenny K.: Thank you for contacting EarthLink Live Sales Chat. To help us improve your customer experience please fill out the survey that will appear after this chat has closed. Good-bye and have a great day !!!

I mean, you've got to give the little minx-bot credit for chutzpah. Of course, no survey appeared once the window was closed. Pity, becasue I had some comments....

That's one person who will never, ever use EarthLink, congratulations Guys.

Field Trip

2007-03-30T23:56:00.000+02:00

Jessica took her students on a field trip around Cairo looking for evidence 0of pollution. Needless to say, it wasn't hard to find:

This is a photo of the Pyramids. They're across the valley, about 8 miles away. On a clear day, they're closs enough to see the outlines of the slabs of rock. That happens about ten times a year, at best. They're visible from across the valley (meaning you can at least see their outline through the smog) about 10% of the time.

Horse in the road; bitch in the car.

2007-03-30T23:44:00.000+02:00

I ride a bus to and from work every day. In retrospect, I’m surprised that tales from the back of the bus haven’t made their way to my blog sooner. Its my university’s version of the water cooler, shade tree mechanic, happy hour pub all rolled into one (minus any possible form of refreshment; no food or drinks allowed). On the bus, I rub elbows with folks from all over the Uni, all three schools, multiple departments and some of the senior administrators. I learn things on the bus, both about life in Cairo (best restaurants, shops, social events), AUC news (new campus building stage, controversies, firings and hirings, the dirt on everyone). Its our institutional memory, social networking, oral tradition and urban legend reservoir all wrapped into one.

In short, for a mere three Egyptian pounds($.50) per trip, its cheap, as they say, at half the price.

Last Wednesday, may go down in the record book as my most memorable bus ride ever. Not only was it great for mere entertainment value, but it crystallized in my mind all of the things about Egypt, both rotten and remarkable. And to think, it only cost me fifty cents.

Ola, who works in some weird bureaucratic office called iPART (I think they’re the long term planners of the university), lives on a narrow street near the corniche in Maadi. Sometimes, she’s feeling rugged and the bus drops her off on the corner. Other days, she insists on being taken to her doorstep. She’s the first person dropped off in the afternoon, and those of us in the back of the bus are usually way too preoccupied with our own cleverness to notice what’s going on outside the bus.

Well, last Thursday, what was going on was that a cart, loaded with gravel and pulled by a handsome horse (chestnut brown, extremely healthy), was coming down this narrow, one-lane street towards us. We were too far down the block to back up so, as is quite typical in Cairo, our driver blazed on ahead, signaling to the cart that he had to pull off to the side. The cart obliged, he found an empty parking space on our right and pulled into it, the blinkered horse casually munching on a bucket of grass while our bus pulled past him. Or at least attempted to pull past him. As we had been patiently waiting for the horse to maneuver into its spot, a woman in a beat up, but relatively late model Peugeot 407 zoomed up and tried to sneak into the same spot as the horse. Apparently, she had been talking on her mobile, and hadn’t noticed the impasse looming. Unfortunately, the cart took up most of the space. Her car could only get about halfway in. Our bus was therefore unable to move forward, and the cart was effectively blocked in.

Now, up till this point, nothing that out of the ordinary had occurred. This was typical Cairo driving behavior and certainly hadn’t garnered much attention from our contingent in the back of the bus. We had dimly been aware of the horse, had heard our driver shouting a little at the car in front, but what got our attention was when our driver shut his engine off completely.

Apparently, after the lady refused to back up, even after he told her that she was the one responsible, his inestimable opinion was that making a defiant gesture of absolute firmness would best resolve the situation.

The lady, herself a deft practitioner in the dark art of back alley driver negotiations, and at an apparent tactical advantage over the bus driver as being the only one really capable of resolving the situation, instead chose to engage the emergency brake, exit the car through passenger side (the bus was blocking the driver’s door), set the car alarm, and calmly, ignoring the speechless but hostile stares of our now thoroughly engage bus denizens, picked her way through the debris on the side of the street and disappeared into a building. The horse, meanwhile, continued to enjoy his snack and break, but was the only creature on the street not entirely aghast at this situation.

Fifteen minutes later, let me repeat myself, fifteen minutes later, during which time we all sat silently, trying to figure out what to do, the neighborhood roused a shopkeeper from his stalled and persuaded him to moved his 1979 orange Mercedes 200E from the right hand side of the street, thus allowing our bus to restart its engine, swerve to the right of the Peugeot (where the bus driver found the restraint not to side swipe it as we passed remains a mystery to me) and we continued home. I didn’t get to see what happened to the horse, but I presume he, too, continued his appointed rounds.

As I mentioned before, this story contains so many elements of my life in Cairo that it practically beggars my ability to expound upon them all. And, since, I’ve almost used up my self-imposed 1000 word post limit, I’ll leave that up to my faithful readership to fill in. Look forward to more episodes from the back of the bus…

Music in My Heart

2007-03-18T14:55:00.000+02:00

My friend Josh has recently established a web presence. He’s in his first year out of college and has gone out west to Oregon, to hang with his dad and live a little. By all available evidence, he seems to be doing a bang up job of it. Of the Putney Crew, (of which my dad is an honorary member, there are four children. I dropped out of school, moved out west, joined the army and ended up in Egypt. Casey finished school, had a serious accident in the jungles of central America, and is now an organic farmer in the Happy Valley. Josh is currently in his adventurous stage, who knows where he’ll end up. Cali (Caledonia) will be leaving home soon, I think.

I may have gotten the furthest thus far, at least geographically, but I can’t help but feel a little wistful when I think of how I’m maybe not the one on the adventure anymore. I just finished watching Josh perform a closes his eyes when he gets to the good parts. I’ve sung in public only once. It was at my wedding and I sang “You’re my Home” by Billy Joel with Annie accompanying me on Guitar. Even though I had practiced a dozen times before the wedding, and they had all sounded very nice, I sang the entire song off key. Of course I knew I was off, as I was singing (even the trees were wincing) but there was nothing I could do about it but push through it.

Everyone said that it was still a super romantic thing to do. I mean, imagine humiliating yourself in front of 120 of your closest friends, is there any better way of expressing your love? My problem, though, is that there was something beautiful in my heart, which I needed to come out. I hear that song, and I get a feeling in my chest. It’s a tightness, a buzzing, a sense of rightness. When Josh sang his song, I had that feeling. His voice has just that James Taylor edge to it, sharp, pure, and sweet; the chords he plays just flow into each other, like a beautiful day.

I live on the most beautiful street in Cairo. The trees are Sycamore Figs; they form a canopy over the streets that the light tries to break through, but all we get is a bright green light, filling the street. When I step outside, a music like Josh’s voice fills my heart. When I come home at night, with the same canopy, but moonlight now, and I see huge fruit bats flitting around, I hear the muezzin calling the evening prayer and the thick sweet air is slightly stirred by the northeast wind, there is another song I feel in my heart, but the feeling is the same.

My mother-in-law, Terry, is an artist, she has an excellent eye for visually pleasing things. They came to visit us in Lebanon and I showed her the view from our balcony. It was an empty lot surrounded by dirty concrete buildings. Laundry fluttered from the balconies and there were several yellow construction machines; backhoes, bulldozers and the like. There were also a few scraggly trees and a small weedy garden. On the top of the neighboring building was a pigeon roost. In the corner was a shipping container which housed a neighborhood generator with a million wires leading to it. I used to sit out on my balcony, sipping ahwa, looking with contentment on my open lot. Feeling as though all were right with the world. I showed Terry my view and asked her from an artistic point of view if the scene had any merit. Without any hesitation, she said “no.”

One last thing: Jessica bought me a guitar last year. I tried learning some chords, but they all sound the same to me. A, C, D, E; repeating them in different patterns didn’t do me any good. After a few weeks of steady practice, my fingers hurt a lot, and I still couldn’t play a song I could recognize. So I gave up. I still take it out of the case now and again to pluck strings in random order, or make up chords that may or may not be harmonious. Mk and Kennedy are both fairly clear on the point that harmony is NOT the defining characteristic of my guitar playing. But occasionally I hit a sweet combination of notes, and I get that tightness in my chest. It makes the rest of the cacophony seem worthwhile, at least to me.

I’m not sure where I’m heading with all these images. I have a sense of loss though, of real sadness. There is music in my heart, beauty and harmony which I have never been able to express. It may be enough, sometimes, that I can feel it, but, today, singing in the shower is not enough.

Manifest Destiny

2007-03-06T23:24:00.000+02:00

Saturday night I had a very vivid dream:

I was on a trip to the desert as a teacher on a bus. The students were a mix of AUCians and BSCers and we had faculty from both. We stopped in a village in the middle of nowhere and all the people on the bus went off to do their thing.

I found myself on the doorstep of what looked like an antique shop, cluttered with bric-a-brac. I really wanted to go in, but was afraid; it was clearly not open for business, and entering would have been trespassing. Two professors joined me on the doorstep, one, named Nate, was equally hesitant and interested. The other, Steve*, said he knew his way around in there. He said he could show us around.

We went in, but the room was too cluttered to walk freely. We had to belly crawl. Although Steve led us in, once inside, I was in the lead; I’m not sure why. The stuff in this room was amazing, I especially noticed the rugs, Dragon style Persian carpets of astounding beauty. Pieces from the Caucasian mountains, Persian pieces and also Bedouin pieces. The other furniture seemed mostly of the typical middle class Egyptian style, heavy gilt and crystal, not really my taste. I also remember some alabaster pieces and some beautiful classical portraits.

After we had all gotten our fill of looking, I led us back to the front door. Although we had left it open, it was shut and barred! I had to stand up to lift the bar, and as I stepped out of the room, there was an Arab sheik, clearly the owner of this building standing on the front porch, casually drinking his tea and holding court with the locals.

I had never felt like more of a trespasser in my life. I felt utter shame, that I would have breached what, in retrospect, was clearly a private space, not meant to share with the likes of us.

The owner, turned toward us as we exited. He was a tall thin man, with bright sharp eyes, leathery, mahogany colored skin and a huge mustache. He was wearing a brown galabeya and a blood red turban. As we shuffled out into the light, covered in dust and cobwebs, he beamed a huge smile and welcomed us with a twinkle in his eye.

He never looked at Steve, but he took Nate by the shoulders and said that his people needed Nate to stay and help them. Nate, shrinking at the prospect, stepped back and refused to help. At which point Sheriff (I knew his name without an introduction) turned to me and asked me if I would help.

As I said that I would stay (I decided to build a school in his village), Sheriff reached out to shake my hand. He hand a huge hand, but the handshake was still strange somehow, it didn’t feel right. When I looked down to see why, I realized that his hand was missing the index finger and pinkie. Each finger was twisted and charred at the second knuckle. But he shook my hand with no self consciousness at all. And as he continued, I realized that it was a warm, welcome handshake, and I felt relief.

All this is introduction to the news that, on Sunday morning, I was invited by Steve to give a teacher training workshop in Baghdad and Irkuk this Spring. Given my name, and the proximity to Mosul, it may come as no surprise that I’ve felt as though my destiny somehow lay in (or at least beyond) the Tigris. The dream had no small part in my feeling that this was a trip that I absolutely had to do. Of course, the fact that I’ll be traveling through a war zone, about five weeks before my second daughter is expected to enter the world, certainly gives me pause.

But I simply can’t escape the feeling that destiny is calling me. Its time to step onto the shore.

Wish me luck.

Personal statement

2007-03-02T00:52:00.000+02:00

One of the eight bagijillion things I've had to do this month was write a personal statement regarding my work at AUC.

The guidance we got was that it should be 12 pt font, single spaced and we should try to keep it to under one page. I laughed. I've been working there for 18 months. I didn't think I could write a meaningful paragraph, let alone most of a page. Well, guess what? It was almost a full page, and I had to leave stuff out. After I finished writing it, I was pretty pleased with myself. I mean, I'm actually doing stuff!!

I am, after all, just about the laziest person I know (and that's saying a lot). So anyway, just to toot my own horn a little bit more, I thought I'd post my personal statement here:

I first came to AUC in 2003 as a TEFL MA fellow. Because of the collaborative and non-competitive nature of the faculty and administration here, I decided that this was the ideal environment for me to mature as a teacher and expand my skills into as many aspects of education as possible.
Since being hired as a full time English instructor in 2005, I have taught nearly every possible section, including all five of the skills areas at the advanced (99) level as well as Academic Writing (100) and Reading in the Graduate Module (124). Prior to graduation, I also spent one semester as a student teacher in the Writing Program teaching research writing(103) I am currently exploring the possibility of teaching a Core Curriculum course in 2008.
In addition to teaching, I have been working hard to participate in the various duties of the department and in the university. I have edited the ELIte, a publication of student work from our department. I am an active member of the ELI computer committee, where I have organized a sub-committee to keep our website up-to-date and have also joined the ELI assessment committee.
Additionally, I am a member of the AUC Faculty Services Committee where I participate in a number of functions, including new faculty orientation and faculty library acquisition and maintenance. I regularly participate in TEFL MA research projects, student training, and research work of my colleagues.
I also participate in the department activities to enhance our materials and teaching tools. I have recently been working to develop a number of audio materials from online sources. I have also been working to develop a WebCT template for the entire program to use and conducting training sessions for teachers to help them use WebCT.
I also work outside the university to enhance the profession of ESL teaching in Egypt. I am an active member of EgypTesol, and sit on the Education Technology special Interest Group, which organizes occasional workshops as well an annual Electronic Oasis at the main EgypTesol convention, where I have presented workshops every year. I have helped develop an online application process and database to help organize the activities of the Electronic Oasis and the rest of the convention. I have also volunteered to be the Webmaster for the EgypTesol website.

After reading it over, I realized I've left lots of stuff off! Hmm, oh well. I'll try to boast more later.

2007-03-02T00:40:00.000+02:00

Well, I never wanted to be the type of blogger who would disappear for weeks at a time only to post a note about how busy he was and then disappear for another long bout. Given my frequency of posts, however, it looks like I’m creeping dangerously in that direction. That said, I would like to boast about the stuff I’ve been doing in recently:

I had a HUGE winter break, over five weeks from the end of classes to the first day of Spring Semester (last Tuesday). With that in mind, I gave myself an enormous list of projects for the month. Ah, how naive. Here’s how January actually went:

Week 1: visit with mother and father-inlaw. Lots of fun, no work done at all.

Week 2: J returned to work, I hung out with Mk. No work done at all (I had actually planned on doing work during her nap time. What I didn’t plan on was that I would need that nap time for…napping.

Week 3: I caved and had the girl go into School with J. Woo hoo! Freedom! No, wait, Mk got an ear infection and had to stay home, see week 2.

Week 4: “That’s it!” I decided and made sure I went into the office to work. Turns out I can play Cyber Nations just as easily there :( Also, turns out I had completely miscalculated when the semester would begin. Although I still had another week to go before classes started, I had agreed to conduct a workshop and student orientation for

Editor's Note: This post was written three weeks ago, just as the semester was begining. As you can see, I didn't even have enough time to finish my sentence. I've been THAT busy. I've got lots more to say, but its 1am and I want to sleep. I'll try to write more soon, I promise. Thanks to all of you who've asked for more.

Oh, and by the way, since one simple blog is obviously too much for me, I'm giving up trying to use live journal for now. I will remain at e-blogger.

Experimentation

2007-01-19T21:34:00.000+02:00

I'm trying out a new bloghost. It seems to be a little more flexible (and a LOT more complicated to use). For the next few weeks, I'll be posting the same content on each site, to see how they compare. Give me feedback, please.

On the Other Hand...

2007-01-17T02:17:00.000+02:00

A good counter argument to my position. I would argue, however, that, if Buckley is right, then this surge will only make our phased withdrawal more secure. In a gamed risk analysis, the surge makes sense to me.

Surge

2007-01-16T23:11:00.000+02:00

The English version of Al Jazeera started broadcasting about a month ago, and I’m at a loss to figure out why its gotten such a bad rap in the western media. My experience has been, I think, the opposite of what most people unacquainted with the organization might expect:
As many of you know, I tend to be a bit of a political junky, especially when it comes to international issues, and most especially, involving this region. As might be expected, I’ve been following the war in Iraq rather closely. For the record, I was in favor of the 2003 invasion, probably for the worst of all possible reasons. I thought that anything was better than the sanctions regime, and all of its inherent corruption (this turned out to be more true than I could have imagined) and burden on innocent Iraqi citizens. I was also incredibly naïve in thinking that democracy, if it took root in Iraq, would have a good chance of positively affecting the other countries in the region. I felt that the administration had done a pretty good job in Afghanistan, and might reasonably be expected to handle Iraq well. I also believed Colin Powell when he said that the WMDs in Iraq posed a significant threat. I further thought that the income Iraq derived (or could derive) from oil coupled with such a strong anti-American regime were intolerable in a region of such importance. I also seriously doubted the liberal nostrum of developing a grand coalition, because I felt that the major European countries would never join.

Since then, incidents like Abu Ghraib, and the widespread arrests and detentions with a total disregard of habeus corpus, the revelation of a total lack of a WMD program, and the near pathological denial on the part of the administration that anything is wrong at all in Iraq have made me regret my position. I remain hopeful that something positive can still happen Iraq, duly noting that it is often just when everything is about to resolve itself that things can seem to be completely disastrous (of course, things also seem completely disastrous just before they get a whole lot worse).

So with all of this background, I was paying very close attention to the debate this weekend over President Bush’s proposal to send in an additional “surge” of troops. My regular daily read, Andrew Sullivan, claimed that it was a half measure, predetermined to fail and an implementation of the “cut and blame” strategy. My daily newspaper, the Herald Tribune, had about ten different stories each day about how everybody in the world thought it was a bad idea. Then, on Sunday night and Monday morning, I watched the pundits roll out on the three Sunday morning talk shows (This Week, Face the Nation, and Meet the Press). Of course, bowing to convention, they had advocates from both sides of the aisle, one of them actually had Republicans for and against the surge as well as Democrats for and against.

It was sad, really. While those opposing the surge had really nothing substantive to offer (the most common phrase was “strong diplomacy”, as if another suit making suggestions were all that it would take, those supporting the surge had nothing better to offer than. “the consequences of failure are catastrophic”. Well, duh! No mention if 20k more troops would actually help things.

And then, dear reader, I turned on Al Jazeera. I usually use it as background noise as I’m reading the paper and uploading my morning caffeine dose, just to see if there’s any late breaking news I should know about. There was an hour long show called, “Indepth Iraq (or something like that) featuring a number of US critics both domestic and abroad (Michael Isikoff was particularly loathsome, in my opinion). There was a “Military Expert” from Cairo, other pundits from around the region, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, and, most remarkably, a plain speaking, level headed, experienced military strategist from Florida. He was a retired general who was still getting briefings from the pentagon and probably was still consulted on military strategy. He was getting challenges from all over the place. The host of the show started, but other pundits would cut in, challenge the general, and ask snide questions (particularly this Isikoff fellow). They brought up every possible concern or criticism of the new surge plan and this general, not bending words, not answering as a politician, just stating his own (well informed) opinion equanimous.

He convinced me. Here’s my current opinion:

5 brigades and an extra regiment are enough to supplement the Iraqi units in the parts of Baghdad where sectarian violence is an issue.
Its also probably all we can muster right now and all that the Iraqi government would put up with.
Sadr city, as well as other militia operation centers will be dealt with later, once overall security is in place.
If this doesn’t work, it was still a good idea to beef up security for a phased withdrawal (could happen as soon as six months if progress isn’t made).

And to think, I saw it on Al Jazeera!!

Unspoiled

2007-01-12T02:14:00.000+02:00

I just got back from the first movie I’ve seen in the theater since last summer. I’m not much for movie reviews, but I’d definitely recommend this one. The English movie selection here in Cairo is, not surprisingly, fairly thin, and I chose to see The Prestige (registration required) basically as the least of the bad ones. It’s been advertised here quite a bit, and I’m a big Christian Bale fan (more from the Empire of the Sun days than American Psycho, although I thought Batman was pretty decent as far as superhero movies go). When I learned that it was written and directed by the brothers who did Memento, it was a lock. I don’t want to write too much for fear of revealing the conciet(yes its one of those). I’m the type of movie goer who loves trying to figure out the trick, but I’m usually disappointed if I succeed. Luckily, my track record is not so good. Dead Again, The Usual Suspects, The Shawshank Redemption, Fight Club, Memento, and The Sixth Sense, all caught me by surprise. Even the Sting surpised me (granted, I was about ten the first time I saw it). The only twist movie I distinctly remember figuring out was The Others, and that was because someone told me beforehand that it was like the Sixth Sense, I was really irritated that the movie had been ruined for me and now I try not to listen to anyone discuss the movie in advance. I saw The Crying Game in the theater, but had to go to the bathroom. The sex scene happened while I was out, and, when I came back in, I asked Scott what I had missed. He just looked at me blankly. I still regret having missed that moment, one which could never be replicated.

Anyway, in this movie (didn’t I say that I sucked at reviews?), I found the twist to be pretty easy to predict, but my enjoyment only increased at watching it unfold. For me, the enjoyment was in seeing the replicated patterns (almost Shakespearean in its duplication of archetypes). The movie also succeeds by asking some very difficult questions and not trying to answer them.

When it comes down to it, though, I have only one empirical measure for a good movie; it is both absolute and impossible to define. When I leave the theater having just seen something wonderful, I feel larger than life, even than the planet. I feel as though I am walking on a very small globe (like the Little Prince), or I’m several miles tall. This happens whether it is a happy or tragic ending. I first noticed this when I left the Hunt for Red October (I know, not a great movie, but I was 16). I was standing outside Kipling Theaters, waiting for my dad to pick me up, and the lamp poles seemed like match sticks. The sky seemed like the top of a pup tent.

Tonight, I walked out of the Galaxy Theater, in Manial, and wanted to walk forever. Nightlife here in Cairo is just starting to pick up around midnight, so I put in my earbuds, played a Norah Jones album and started walking. There were a bunch of cafes along the Nile and small groups of guys were walking down the street, laughing and joking. On the main thoroughfare, the bright lights and fast moving traffic energized me. There were little sheesha joints, and kushri shops with a scattering of customers*. Once I got to Maadi, the wide, leafy streets, the occasional security guards and the pollution haze all combined to enhance my mood. I started taking long measured steps to stretch out my legs, put my hands in my pockets and walked home. Occasionally I would get into my grandfather's bulldog style of walking, head down and working more on speed than style, but when ever I noticed this, I slowed myself down, enjoyed some detail of the walk and tried to regulate my breathing.
There were so many beautiful details. It started with my new shoes, which, after ten days of walking in the dust of the Pharoahs and the Imams, look ten years old but still feel brand new. The night noises, filtered through my own music also got my attention. Then, of course, the Maadi trees captured me and my heart. The last bit, down road Fifteen was the best. I stood at midan moustafa kamal (known by some as the gay garden) and looked down the street. The Sycamore Figs form a canopy, actually a long tunnel all the way down the street. I was leaving the confines of the great wide world and gradually entering the narrow freedom of my personal cave. I was exchanging the refreshing brisk miasma of Cairo for the filtered warm cleanliness of the hearth. Hera, that peacock, would be proud. As I turned into my building, I said goodnight to the guard, and promised to write Athena a letter.

Well, this is what comes of seeing The Prestige, do so at your own peril.

*In the interest of accuracy, I need to mention that a taxi ride and a decaf mocha cappuccino (flavored with cinnamon) broke up the narrative here. I omitted them for purely poetical reasons.

Divorce

2006-12-20T23:08:00.000+02:00

Well, I finally did it today. I ended the abusive relationship I've been in for the last five years. Before I give anyone a heart attack, it wasn't my marriage. It was the Tribe Forum. This is a BBC forum I've been on since October, 2001. Its populatated by a lot of very good friends, and, in the interest of keeping them as friends, I've decided to quit.

Here's the background:
Jessica went to high school in Bay City, Michigan and was a part of a very tight group of friends. Over the years, they've managed to keep together as a closely knit group. In fact, I met Jessica because one of the members of this group was in my battalion at Ft. Bragg. In many ways, the camaraderie of the Tribe is very remeniscent of barracks life. There are wives, girlfriends and children, but its still a guy group. Their interests revolve mainly around drinking, gaming, and drinking. Now again, they like to drink, also.

Despite my total lack of enthusiasm for either of these activities, I've enjoyed their company more than I can say. They are all wickedly intelligent, and honorable albiet with a slightly different set of values than mine.

The main difference amoung us has been political. I come from a very liberal background (I was genuinely surprised to learn that GW Bush had any supporters at all in 2001). Most of these guys, however, are not only Christian Conservatives, they despise liberals and beleive they represent everything that is foul in the world.

Although the forum was started in the aftermath of 9-11 (the prelude of which involves an interesting tale for another day), it wasn't until the following Autumn when it really got kick started. Dan, the guy who had introduced me to Jessica, and i had been exchanging heated e-mails debating politics and media (in particular, whether or not the media was biased) and I suggested we move the dicussion ontot he forum. We quickly did so and have spent the last five years debating almost every single political point possible. Predictably, I usual;ly took the liberal position, while he took the conservative.

I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on this forum. I've checked it several times a day for the last five years. Often, I've been frusterated, because Dan, and a few others who join in are very clever, and I occassionally felt as though they were arguing around the point, losing the truth to win the argument. I confess, there have been a few times when I was guilty of the same thing, although I tried hard not to be.

For the last six months, our argument had been pretty monotone. I said that the situation in Iraq was getting worse. He said I was wrong. It was becoming another nu-uh/ nu-huh conversation.

Yesterday, in yet another of these endless, and pointless discussions, I snapped. I think it was because the whole argument rested on the meaning of a simple word. I'm not going to go into great detail (if you want to read the forum, you have to join it, e-mail me if you want the URL), but I posted my thoughts in good faith, knowing that Dan couldn't help but respond (he has never, once, left one of my comments unanswered) but also knowing that if he deliberatley misinterpreted my words once more, I was done.

Well, he did it. I stormed off in a huff of electrons. I even removed the link from my favorites bar. I know that if I keep checking it, I'll have to respond. It feels like I've lost a body part right now. I'm going to suffer a lot of withdrawel (and my blog is probably going to suffer a lot more blog posts).

But I know I did the right thing. I beleive in the power of dialectic, two parties, coming from opposite directions can meet in the middle and synthasize what is best about each. But this wasn't that. It was merely an exercise in invective, who could best cloak reality in the smoothest words. It had turned...ugly.

I feel sad, but free.

'Tis the Season

2006-12-20T14:57:00.000+02:00

Mk is almost old enough for Christmas to matter. This year will probably be low key, but next year, it’ll be a big deal. I’ve always felt uncomfortable with the idea of Santa, and I’m not sure how I’ll handle it with the girl. I don’t understand the point of all these Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, St. Nick type lies. When I finally figured out that it was all a hoax (presents in the closet that later showed up under the tree from “Santa”), I was so embarrassed for my father, that I pretended to believe in Santa for another two years. I couldn’t handle telling him that I knew he was a liar .

Before my mother died, she had been the one trying to carry out the hoax. For some reason, it seems less like a betrayal coming from her. I suppose it was because she was so inept at it. One year, when we were all at my grandfather’s apartment in Peter Cooper Village, my cousint (that’s for you, T) and I slept on the floor, next to the tree. We stayed up so late, however, that all the adults fell asleep before they could sneak the boxes under the tree.

The next morning, during breakfast, my mom came running out of the bedroom with a armful of presents. “Santa just stopped by,” she said. “He apologized for not bringing them last night, because he was running late.” In retrospect, my grandfather rolling his eyes makes much more sense. She pulled the same trick on me when I was five and started losing my teeth. The tooth fairy was horribly inept, apparently, and couldn’t ever keep to her schedule. To this day, I still think of the her (the tooth fairy) as a frazzled, unkempt ditz, driving at rusty, dark green Gremlin.

So, you can see, I hope, why I don’t want the girl to be traumatized. Perhaps it’s a good lesson for her; never trust the old ones, they lie! I just don’t want it to be at my hands. And the realization comes too early, in my opinion.

God, I hate Christmas.

Crackhead part two -enter the city

2006-12-19T00:33:00.001+02:00

Ok, I’m going to try to tell this next bit as straight as I can, no “perspective”, no parallels to my kid, just, as they say, the facts. If you recall, your unfortunate hero was walking down Delsea Drive with, I think, two bags in my hand. I remember that one of them was a light brown travel bag, I think it was a Pan-Am bag, with the meridians of the globe stenciled on in cracked plastic. My gloves were also brown, chocolate brown suede lined with lamb’s wool, with a tan trapezoid on the back of my hands (I later lost one of those gloves to a German shepherd on Rt 322, but that’s another story).

Walking out of Glassboro, NJ, at five in the evening led me past the Meat Market, the Seven Eleven, where I stopped to buy an atlas, Brother Bruno’s pizzeria, then Angelo’s Diner, the Acme supermarket, skater’s choice rink, and finally five points diner. This was a thirty or forty minute walk that I didn’t even notice. I didn’t know where I was going, just away. At five points, I caught my first ride, a jeep which landed me on an overpass near Belmawr. Underneath was a big highway, which I hoped was the Turnpike, but turned out to be 295. the next ride was a guy in a camaro, who took me up to Fort Dix, just outside the turnpike. Then he agreed to take me onto the Turnpike, and drop me off at the rest stop (Molly Pitcher) if I would pay his ticket (75 cents).

At this point a little perspective is in order, I think (I guess I just can’t help myself). I was fourteen years old, it was the middle of the week in the evening, a school day. Who the hell was picking me up? I think they all told me I shouldn’t be on the road, that it was too dangerous, but everyone wanted to help me. Just be a nice guy for me. I don’t know why.
At the rest stop, I guy in a BMW, pulling out of the station stopped for me. He had a set of skis in the trunk which stuck through and rested between our bucket seats. I don’t remember anything about him, except that he wore brown leather driving gloves (brown again!). I was afraid of him, he seemed a little too controlled to be safe. In the movie in my head, he would be played by Christian Bale. Ski man drove me all the way into Manhattan, dropped me off just outside of the Holland tunnel.
Even though my Grandfather lived on 23rd street, there was no way I was going there. Grandpa’s apartment was not “running away”. It was safe. Or else, he would just send me home again. But I was willing to go to my second cousin’s place in Brooklyn. She was edgy enough (trying to make it as an actor) to count as running away, I guess. I had been to her place once before, that fall. She had worn a fake fur jacket (brown, again) and we had gone to see Sine O’ the Times at the grammercy. I had been bored by it, but enthralled with my cousin. She had peroxided her hair so she could audition for a bimbo in a horroer movie that summer. I had helped her practice for the part. If I was going to run away, how could I not go to her place? I tried to get her phone number, but it was unlisted. When I went to her place that fall, though, I could see the bridge (well, a bridge) from her apartment. How hard could it be? I decided it must be Manhatten bridge, took the subway to Brooklyn, and started wandering the streets trying to find her place.

Teaching Writing the Hypocritcal Way

2006-12-15T22:16:00.000+02:00

I teach writing at a very basic level. Often times, I have to spend several weeks teaching the students what a sentence is, that it must be a complete sentence, and not a run-on sentence. I tell them how many clauses to put into their sentences (3) and that at least one of them should be a subordinant clause. I do this because our teachers who grade essays are sentence nazis. They will fail a student for having a few comma splices, or for stringing a number of clauses together with a bunch of subordinant conjunctions. To be fair, I also do it because, at the level these guys are writing, they need all of the structural clarity they can get in their sentences. The meaning is so often difficult to interpret because of the weak vocabulary (this is aside from the fact that they rarely have anything to say in the first place).

Anyway, I'm feeling a little guilty for this tonight, especially after looking at the completely haphazard way I string clauses together. I actually got an e-mail from the diecter of our program a few years ago, mildly suggesting that, as an English teacher, it might be better if I didn't have comma splices in my e-mails. Whatever.

So I want to have a contest:
For all my devoted readers (both of you), see if you can post an example of a comma splice in the comments section. If more than fifty percent of the comments do have a comma splice, I won't feel so bad about sucking all the life out of my students. Doesn't this sound fun?

Crack Head, Part I

2006-12-15T22:10:00.000+02:00

I ride the bus with a writer with whom I have a lot in common. Same type of wanderlust, adventurous, tons of tales to tell. He’s almost sixty, and has a son about my age, and a wife about my age, too. John’s from the south, has an accent like Woody from Cheers. That slow drawl that a good ole boy ought to have. The kind that takes you in, slows you down. Meanwhile, his brain is working a mile a minute, processing what you say and about a half a dozen other threads. Most importantly, he is enthusiastic. He listens and appreciates what he hears. It has a way of getting you to open up, say things you might not want people to know. Its dangerous, a bit, especially for folks like me who have a habit of talking more than we listen.

John used to wrestle in college, was captain of his team, in fact. I wanted to tell him about my cousin, the national champion wrestler. Really, just to look good, though how being related to someone who did something makes me look good escapes me right now. I probably sensed that as I was speaking (especially because I couldn’t remember anything about Billy’s wrestling career, other than his name) Which is most likely why I ended up telling him about the my first long-term hitch-hiking adventure. I've been trying to write this for a while, so I think I'll just post what I have, then pick it up again later.

I was fourteen, no longer a virgin, but still a pimply faced, long haired baby. I was several months into a new attempt to define myself. In middle school, I had found safety in being different from everyone by wearing a tie and carrying a briefcase. I had tried to change my name, but no one would call me Alan. That summer, after failing biology, I had spent the summer in remedial classes with my cousin, Sarah, who had to take an English course. She took me on as a project, giving me new clothes (ripped jeans and tie-dyed t-shirts) new music to listen to (Grateful Dead and Aerosmith) and a few bad habits (Camel Straights and Bong Hits). The transformation was dramatic. I entered high school as a new kid. Girls were interested in me, classmates wanted to hang out with me, even teachers somehow liked me more in this new mask. Fall of 1987 was an adventure for me.

The one constant was my increasingly hostile relationship with my father. Now, 20 years later, I can’t even remember what we fought about. I still feel the rage, though. I look at my two year old daughter, who has inherited the same will, and understand some of the conflict. She sits in the tub and stares at me. Suddenly we are locked in a contest, who will look away first. After almost a minute, she looks away. I win!! These are the seeds of my life. She doesn’t yet have the power of speech, yet we struggle.

Imagine me, almost six feet tall, yet gangly, awkward and completely indomitable. My father, about whom, even now my fingers itch to denigrate, probably the same when he was younger. We were two together, alone in a large house (not large enough). Perhaps the argument that day was about taking out the garbage, or cleaning my room. Maybe it was about what TV show I could watch. Anger usually flared up about the silliest things.

Anyway, I remember saying I was leaving and never coming back, he said “great, you want me to pack your bag?” (jeez, even writing that makes me angry all over again). Then, he disappeared into his office for an hour (he’s a shrink, working out of the house). I went up to my room, packed a bag (making sure to bring my camera and $152 worth of quarters) and started walking down route 42 (Delsea drive). It was January, so there was snow on the ground, and it was pretty cold out, but I don’t remember feeling cold. I just remember the anger.

Electronic Oasis

2006-11-24T19:09:00.000+02:00

Well, November is almost over and what amonth its been! Our Electronic Oasis was last weekend, it went off rather well. Every year it seems to go smoother and smoother. I hope I have something to do with that. Here's our organizing committee (minus Ahmed who was fluttering in and out of our area because he was rubbing elbows with the convention comittee. In front, from left to right: Ahmed K, Dina, Maha, Randa and Gini. In the back, its Andy, Me, and Inas. The weekend left me exausted, but satisfied. The big highlight was that Jessica's and Grainne's presentation (which they wouldn't have made unless I encouraged them) was a smashing success! I know i'm biased, but that girl really can speak. She was authoritative, interesting, well organized and very fun to look at. So there's a bunch for me to be thankful there. Primarily, that it went well, and its over (plus I have a cute wife).

Thanksgiving

2006-11-24T15:31:00.000+02:00

I started cooking Wednesday night around seven. Twenty-four hours later, the table looked like this:

Here's My entry for the second annual "Thanksgiving Table of the Year Awards"

From Left to Right: Rica, Christal, Jessica, Grainne, Andy, Meredith, and Mk

Did I mention we made Pie? Andy Supplied the Apple filling, and Christal made the latticework. Yum yum!!

Since I put so much work into it, I'm going to describe in detail the meal.

I started with the sausage. In the states we used morning star farms sausage; they're the best and totally yummy, also totally non-existent here in Cairo. So, I started with some texturized Soy Protein, added pepper, rosemary, fresh parsley, marjoram, thyme and some garlic powder. I mixed that all up, let it soak in water for a while, then mixed it with a few teaspoons of flour and a few eggs. I rolled them into sausage links (with their light brown color, they really looked gross) and dropped them into boiling water (with bouillon and tamari) until they floated to the top. Then I fried them in butter until they were golden brown.

I then made a typical sausage stuffing, with celery, onions and butter, and mostly the same spices except I added a bunch of sage and a LOT more garlic. I put some vegetarian chicken patties on top of that and left it to soak up some moisture overnight.

Then I had to make the stock. I've never found parsnips here in Cairo, So I used turnips instead. I boiled the shit out of some onions, garlic, celery, parsley, potatoes and turnips, with pinch of marjoram, thyme, and oregano.

By this point, it was about two in the morning (it would have been done earlier, except, while I was putting my wife to bed, the stock boiled over and the flame went out, so I lost a few hours there (it takes me a while to put her to bed).

The next morning, J went to work and took Mk with her. So, after a nice cup of coffee and a not so nice bike ride to the market, I started back up again. I took my stock from the night before, removed all the vegetables but keeping the starchy ones. Then I put a whole new batch of veggies in there (mostly the same ones but I also added some carrots, spices, tamari and bouillon) I then boiled the shit out of them. I strained it again, but this time, I took all the veggies and tossed them into the blender, slowly added some of the strained stock. I ended up with a thick savory substance the consistency of tomato soup, which I then tossed back on the stove and reduced until dinner time. To this mixture I added a bunch of mushrooms sauteed in butter, garlic and basil. This was my gravy.

So that's the main focus of my meal. Sausage stuffing with thick mushroom gravy. But I had quite a few other little extras:

Tomato, mozzarella, and basil morsels sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and oil for an appetizer

A carrot, date and apple salad

tabbouleh salad

cold roasted beets (rubbed with garlic, salt pepper and olive oil)

Lentil soup (Jessica made this)

fresh peas (just lightly steamed)

string beans sauteed with almonds

sweet potatoes with a butter, ginger, and walnut sauce

Mashed potatos (Jessica made these)

And, of course, ocean spray cranberry sauce, pulled out of the can with the lines still intact, cut into two halves and places on the plates.

For dessert, I made two pies.

The first one was a simple pumpkin pie made from canned pumpkin filling. I added evaporated milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. The recipe called for cloves, which I forgot I had, and I also decided not to put nutmeg in it, because I blamed last year's yucky pumpkin pie on the nutmeg (in retrospect, it is possible that i accidentally put coriander into it).

Andy brought some apples and we made a nice apple pie with a latticework crust on top.

Although the pie fillings were not really my doing, I was especially proud of the crusts, which consisted of flour and butter, with just a pinch of salt. The weren't the best I've ever had, but they were respectable. Especially since I've only made one other crust in my life, almost ten years ago for a spinach quiche (or was it broccoli?). The secret, I think, is not to work the dough too much. Also, use room temperature butter when you mix it in with the flour but, after you get it to the right consistency, refrigerate it for a few hours before rolling it out. At least that's what Irma says.

We also had homemade whipped cream and strawberries and Cristal had brought some delicious pomegranates

Finally, Jessica made some spiced chai (ginger, cardamon, cloves, cinnamon, and black tea, with milk and sugar) and I made some coffee.

All in all, it was a pretty darn good meal, and I don't think I'll have the energy to cook again, for about six more months-- probably just in time for our leftovers to run out.

So we had five guests, and we all had a lovely time. Jessica fell asleep around nine. At about ten o'clock Meredith, Christal, and Rica left. I put Mk to bed and Andy hung around for a few more hours. Today is his sister's birthday, so he wanted to use our Skype to call home. Also, since today was Jessica's Birthday, I also put her present out. It consisted of about 30 pictures enlarged and finally getting our wedding present from Uncle John framed as well as a piece of word art which she made when we first started dating. She woke up around five this morning and found it:

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone, and Happy Birthday Jessica!!

Freedom

2006-11-06T23:13:00.000+02:00

I took the last song off, because I didn't want a picture of OBL on my blog. This one leans the same way, perhaps a bit stronger and has some over the top associations that I don't agree with. Nevertheless, I hope everyone who can votes tomorrow.

Praeteritio

2006-11-02T12:36:00.000+02:00

This is definitely my type of humor.

Some people might call it pretentious, pompous and self-satisfied.

I had to look it up, but it was worth it.

The Obvious Confirmed

2006-11-01T20:21:00.000+02:00

Making a Nuisance of Myself

2006-10-23T10:51:00.000+02:00

When I was twelve our family had a reunion at a camp in the Adirondacks, a place called Putnam Camp. A lot of the staff were high school kids, often friends and relatives of the family. I spent my entire week following some of them around, trying to be one of them. In retrospect, I can see that I wasn't quite as popular with them as I thought I was ("Hey Chris, you didn't tell me you were all going swimming." "Uh, I forgot." "It's a good thing I was waiting outside your door." "Yeah, good thing.")

One way in particular that I tried to be one of the gang was with a board they had in the kitchen. It was mostly for daily announcements but they had put up, on one part of it, the "quote of the day". Whenever one of these camp guys said something particularly witty and funny, it would be written on the board. Typical of the genre were: "If this is supposed to be China, why does it say 'made in Japan?'" and "My balls ache!" Needless to say, I was desparate to have one of MY lines put up on the board. To this end, I followed them around, repeating jokes, quotes and trying to make up funny things, each one puntuated by "Shouldn't that go up on the board?" Chris tried to explain to me that it had to be a bit more spontaneous, but I was determined to get something up on the board.

I remember that story today, because I've been doing it again. Andrew Sullivan has a feature called "The View From Your Window" which is, simply put, pictures submitted by readers around the world from their windows (who would've guessed?) I've been trying to get a picture posted since the begining. I mean, I live in Cairo, how could he not post my picture? I've sent him at least four different pictures, but still nothin has appeared.

Two nights ago, I woke up around three in the morning and couldn't fall back asleep. When I went to make myself a bowl of cereal, I noticed that dawn was just about to break. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots. These had to make it onto the page. I took four shots and sent them all off to Andy, fingers crossed. Her's the best one:

Well, this morning, Sullivan put this post on his blog. I can only assume it was directed at me.

Sigh, I'll never be cool.

Can I help you?

2006-10-22T05:54:00.000+02:00

Yes, I am one of those fathers who thinks his daughter can't possibly be anything other than adorable. It's shots like this that makes one wonder whether the whole information revolution was really worth it.

Some photos taken in Egypt

2006-10-20T21:52:00.000+02:00

This picture demonstrates what I was talking about. "Bartys"

These were e-mailed to me by a former classmate. I don't know who took them, but, together, they say a lot about living here.

Nuance

2006-10-20T12:02:00.000+02:00

A perfect politician for a nuanced fence-straddler like me:

"It has not always been the pragmatist, the voice of reason, or the force of compromise, that has created the conditions for liberty," he writes about the antislavery movement of the 19th century. "Knowing this, I can't summarily dismiss those possessed of similar certainty today--the antiabortion activist ... the animal rights activist who raids a laboratory--no matter how deeply I disagree with their views. I am robbed even of the certainty of uncertainty--for sometimes absolute truths may well be absolute."

-Barrack Obama

Metrics in Iraq

2006-10-20T07:10:00.000+02:00

Read this report.

Its not all bad: Oil revenues are slowly increasing, Schools are improving and Electricity outside of Baghdad is at target levels

But the majority of indicators are moving in the wrong direction:the Electricity levels in Baghdad, the Number of Attacks per day, the number of insurgents, the number of civilians killed, the number of US troops killed, These and many other "Metrics" are all trending in the wrong direction.

We need a new strategy.

Mk Grooving to Sesame Street

2006-10-19T19:21:00.000+02:00

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=32491378&postID=116127857175985172

Overheard in NeW York

2006-10-19T10:45:00.000+02:00

Tourist on cell:
The Chinese are notorious for blurring the line between pet and soup.

Fuck Me Up the Goat Ass

2006-10-17T22:34:00.000+02:00

This is the song to which I awakened one god-awful morning back at Fort Bragg. I think you can excuse me for thinking I was eternally damned to Hell

Cultural Disconnect

2006-10-17T14:38:00.000+02:00

So my class has a number of really interesting, opinionated, and type A personalities this semester, which I absolutely love. It makes for lively discussions. Usually I'll have one or maybe two big talkers and the others just kind of coast by. But this class is much more fun. Its also nice that there's no gender gap here. There are big personalities on both sides of the class (yes, much like grade school, they all segregate themselves by gender).

So I thought we would have a great discussion today about gender rights. I had given them an article about perceptions of women in the office, and after doing some reading comprehension questions, I opened up the discussion.

Stone cold silence.

Usually, all I have to say are the magic words, "what do you all think?" and the next two hours are sucked into a time vacuum. This time, though, I asked question after question about women in the work place, perceptions of roles for men and women all the usual stuff.

I got one word answers, people sort of mumbling under their breath, and nothing really direct. After a few minutes, one of the guys, Islam is his name, expostualtes in Arabic. I didn't cathc it all, but he basically said, "this is a bunch of horse shit" (I got this more from context than actual vocab, btw).

I asked him what he thought and he replied that this whole conversation was a joke, that women already hve all the rights they need. I looked to some of the girls in the class, especially the ones who seem to have anb opinion for everything, and tried to get them to respond. Nothing.

So I responded myself, a little bit, hoping I might give some of the others some ideas that they could then develop on their own. I talked about women not getting many managerial jobs, about how certain fields were pretty much closed off to them. Islam (and others) responded that this was because they had to stay at home and be moms. I did get a rise out of a few of the girls when I mentioned how women get harassed on the street, then I really got them excited when i asked why women aren't allowed to go to cafes to smoke shisha (hookahs).

But then I lost them completely. I talked about how no women were allowed to be Judges in Egypt. At this they all (girls and boys) started arguing with me. They said that women can't be judges, that they are too emotional and aren't qualified to be a judge. I told them how we have had several judges on the supreme court who do quite well, and they didn't really beleive me, or they said "well, that's just one example".

I asked Farah, the best student in the class, most organized, opinionated and reasonable person there, if she thought that SHE shouldn't be allowed to be a judge. Her responce?

"No, I shouldn't. I get too emotional."

Stunned, I ended the discussion.

Dada Zen

2006-10-17T14:36:00.000+02:00

When it comes to Dying, robots are as boring as a production of Richard the Third with an all potato cast.

Factoid

2006-10-12T04:19:00.000+02:00

About me:

I like jokes that nobody gets. You'll find them littered about my posts, little references that only make sense, or even appear if you know all of the things I know. Actually, I guess you won't find them.
Case in point, the title of this blog: I'm not going to explain it in detail, but suffice it to say that there are two moments written about in the Bible that have a particularly strong resonance. The first, is when one confronts that which is. As some might put it, we remove the mask from the fool, if only for a moment. That moment, which for some people repeats ad nauseum through life, is what gives us direction, but it can also lead to hope, sometimes despair. At its best, I hope that this blog occasionally offers a dim reflection of some of those moments in my life, when I have faced down a burning bush. Thus the title of this blog

The second moment in life, reflected in my pseudonym (barely), can, perhaps be called the MLK moment. It is the instantiation of glory, albiet short lived and impermanent. It is the moment when you see the completion of your life's work (or what you thought your life's work was) and you have a brief shot of triumph, until you taste the ash of realization that, a) your work is in no wise done and b) you will never reap the reward of your efforts.

See what I mean about jokes that no one will ever get?

Here's a (slightly) less pompous joke that I always enjoy on October 12th:
1. I was born on the day Columbus "discovered" America.
2. Colombo is Greek for dove.
3. My given name is Hebrew for...dove.

How cool is that?

There's more to this, involving Noah (releasing a dove to find dry land) and Jesus (who saw God descending as a Dove) and several other connections that especially appeal to me now that I'm old enough to be crucified (there I go again!) but I'll stop here.

Happy Birthday to me.

Crazy Love Vol. II

2006-10-07T21:15:00.000+02:00

Here’s a big memory for me:

I was driving north on I-95 after my second weekend with J. The first weekend, I had skipped hanging with the Dalai Lama to be with her. Then I drove back down three days later for another long weekend. Anyway, I was on the beltway, headed north, fifteen minutes into a 6-8 hour drive and Graceland was the first album of the ride. It was a bright, sunny, July afternoon. I was driving 80 miles an hour and Paul was crooning:

I don’t want no part of this crazy love
I don’t want no part of your love.

The funny thing about that song is how joyous it is. The lyrics seem so judgmental; I mean, they’re saying no. But the music, the rhythm, everything else is shouting YES! YES! to the Andalusian girl.

That was six years ago, and I often have cause to think back upon that moment. Within a few weeks, I discovered the bizarre sleep walking and talking syndrome. A few months after that, she actually passed out from listening to me and my father arguing. A few seconds later, she bolted, still with her eyes shut, out of the room and the house. I chased after her and finally found her curled up in a ball on the side of the road, about half a mile away. Later, when were planning our wedding, she insisted that we stop calling the spot up on the hill, “by the gravely” (the brand name of the tractor), because that sounded too, you know, dead.

These are maybe not the best examples, but I’m not really trying to build a case for why she’s crazy. What my experience has been, right from the get go, was that her reactions, while often seeming arbitrary and totally irrational, were also implacable, for example, her completely visceral response to anything that resembles the eyes of a bug, from honey comps to black-eyed susans (which were definitely NOT included in our wedding bouquets). I often find this reaction to be really scary. I mean, when you wake up because your girlfriend is ululating in the closet, not down by the shoes, mind you, but up on the third shelf, a feeling of fear may be perfectly rational. However, it is this feeling that I find most liberating about my relationship with her. It is completely out of my control, and all I can do is let go, accept it, and move on. I love her for it, and I feel it has allowed me to face many other fears.

It’s like the wise man once said:

Love gives you wings. It makes you fly. I don't even call it love. I call it
Geronimo. When you're in love, you'll jump right from the top of the Empire
State and you won't care, screaming "Geronimo" the whole way down. I love her so
bad, I just... whoa, she wrecks me. I'd die for her.

Best Sentence of the Day

2006-09-29T16:02:00.000+02:00

All of a sudden a lot of the jokes on the Simpsons started to make more sense.

beanut putter and jelly

2006-09-27T14:13:00.000+02:00

So I believe that Egypt is a ripe proving ground for my latest audio-linguistic theory:

As some of you may know, Egyptians, especially of a lower socio-economic status, have dificulty distinguishing between the voiced and unvoiced bilabial plosive (/p/ & /b/) usually this results in many English /p/ words sounding like /kombooter/ (for computer) or /bleez/ for please.

Well, here's the interesting part (to me, at least): Since I've gotten to Egypt, I've noticed that, when I type, I occassionally transpose these two letters! They are no where near each other on the keyboard, and, although they do mildly resemble each other, it is not like the f and p, or the i and l. So where does this mistake come from?

Some proffessional linguists assure me that there is no known linguistic theory to account for this. They were perfectly willing to offer up some non-linguistic explanations (i.e. that I'm bonkers, or just plain wrong).

So here is my challenge: somebody come up with a cogent theory to explain this phenomenon, and I'll test it here in Egypt.

Any takers?

On the brighter side...

2006-09-27T13:41:00.000+02:00

Ramadan is increasing the time I have to spend with Mk. Twice a wekk we get to school about a half hour before the nursery opens its doors. We spend the time playing on the playground and I find it delightful.

She is also getting used to the place, yesterday afternoon, when I went to pick her up, she didn't want to leave, she was having so much fun there. This morning was the first time she didn't fuss when I dropped her off she walked right in, sat down and started flipping through a book. Maybe it was the pink silk Hello Kitty Kimono she was wearing. (Thanks, Terry)

Also, last night she slept in her own bed the entire night. Usually she wakes up to nurse. I only know this because she's always in our bed when we wake up in the morning, but today, I went and got her out of her own crib in the morning.

In other Mk news: Her vocabulary has increased dramatically recently. In addition to Bye bye, she now says hello. She also says dog (or maybe duck) which is the word for every animate creature except humans. She's also got command of shoes and juice which, because of their phonetic similarity, have caused a few comic situations.

Her Arabic also seems to be expanding at a similar, if not greater pace. Yesterday, when it was time to go down to the garden, she pointed at the floor and said, quite firmly, taht (down). We also suspect that she is saying 'oh, as a version of qqoh (yucky).

I love watching her grow.

Ramadan: Kareem or Bidan*?

2006-09-27T09:44:00.000+02:00

So, I'm into day four of my fifth Ramadan. I've discovered that my dislike of the month is in inverse proportion to the ammount of guilt I feel for not fasting. As a non-muslim, I know this is preposterous, but never-the-less, when your surrounded by 50 million fasting people, you tend to wonder if maybe you should avoid the luncheon meat, ya know?

The last five years, (with one ramadan off in DC) my ramadans have been super stressfull. The first three I actually tried to fast. The second year (my first here in Egypt) I actually made it until the third week before giving up. Last year, I just resolved not to eat in public, hiding behind closed doors or furtively gobbling a small sandwich in my cubbyhole when no one was around. Anytime I was invited to an Iftar (Arabic for breakfast, served at sunset during Ramadan), I did fast for that day.

This year, I am flaunting my food. I eat when I want, what I want. I order sandwiches and lemonade delivered to my desk (by fasting Muslims), and, when I do go to an Iftar, it'll be my third meal of the day.

Guess which year I've been least stressed out about Ramadan?

Now, in the interest of fairness, I've decided to make a list of plusses and minuses for the non-muslim living through Ramadan. Let's start with the plusses:

Ramadan Kareem
No smoking during the day
Shorter lines in the faculty lunch room
no traffic between 4 and 6 pm (everyone is already home)
greater generosity and less hunger (everyone eats well in Ramadan, regardless of income)
Workday ends an hour earlier

OK, now the minuses:

Ramadan Bidan
Classes are only 40 minutes long (how can I do anything in 40 minutes? Attendance takes 40 minutes)
Two days a week, classes start 40 minutes earlier (because we want to make sure they have enough time for lunch break, fer pete's sake!)
L'Aroma, the nearest Cafe is closed for the Month
Tahrir Kushri, my comfort food, is also closed for the month
The sandwhiches I get delivered, come without any extras (tomatoes, condiments etc.)
My students are exausted during the day (they've been out celebrating all night)
They don't have time for any homework (their social obligations really are extreme)
They have a major test the week after Ramadan ends.

So, in this analysis, I'd have to say, in total, Ramadan Bidan!

*kareem translates as "sweet" or "nice" bidan roughly means "sucks balls"

Clinton the Badass?

2006-09-26T21:11:00.000+02:00

I loved watching this interview (Parts 1, 2, and 3). Truth is, I'd tune in to Bubba just about anytime. The guy sure can talk. He seemed to prevaricate a little bit, especially when he back pedaled on whether the 9-11 report was the definitive source, or if it was Richard Clarke (isn't he the new year's eve guy). On the whole though, I thought he ripped Wallace a new one, and it was fun to watch. His basic point, I think, is totally spot on. Clinton was actively trying to catch this guy (when the oppostion was worried about who creamed on who's jeans) and then they got into office and didn't do squat. Yet the question is always "why didn't Clinton do more?" They never ask the other guys that, do they?

Tribute...and blanket attribution

2006-09-26T13:51:00.000+02:00

Before I get too much further in this blog, I need to explain that my a lot the political/cultural stuff I post is cherry picked off of The Daily Dish. I'm not trying to copy Andrew Sullivan's excellent work, its just that I find much of the things I'm concerned about concern him as well. He is an excellent source of information. If you find the topics I write about to be important, then I strongly suggest that you check his blog out on a daily basis. I do. Even though I use his links, and write on the same topics, I do add my own personal take on issues. I just wanted to give fair warning. I don't really scan hundreds of webpages looking for good sources and info (although if he doesn't have what I'm looking for, I do some independent research). But I do have a day job and Sullivan is a great shortcut into most of the issues which really matter.

The Pope & Islam

2006-09-26T11:08:00.000+02:00

There is an interesting interview of Kevin Madigan, SJ, president of the Institute for the Study of Religions and Cultures at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome that offers some insight into the latest furor. I'd recommend reading the original speech first, because, even though he get's a lot right, Madigan's take is off the mark in a few instances.

First, he says :

the Byzantine emperor’s position was relevant to the Holy Father’s larger theme: the rationality of God and the irrationality of violence. It is significant that the emperor was Greek because the pope wanted to underline the confluence of Greek philosophy and biblical faith.

But then he adds his own commentary:

It seems to me essential not to lock Muslims into one particular reading of their texts and traditions. It is nonsensical to say to someone who claims that Islam is a peaceful religion that he may not believe such a thing because the Qur’an says such-and-such. She should be encouraged to believe that Islam is peaceful and held to observe that.

I think the Pope wasn't trying to "Lock Muslims into one particular reading"; rather, he was commenting on the actions of people. I mean, there is violence and Islamic practice is forced upon people. If you don't think so, look at the Afghani who was almost sentenced to death from converting to Christianity.

By the end, Madegan has devolved into pure PC balderdash where the violence of the Islamic world is because of their poverty. That meme has been clearly refuted, IMHO, by the high numbers of terrorists which are actually fairly well educated, and come from staunchly middle class backgrounds. I mean, my students, certainly not poverty stricken by any sense of the imagination, often talk about violence as a means to justify religious differences. Madegan, however, does give throw the Pope this bone:

None of this is to say that it is all the fault of non-Muslims.

Well, gee, thanks. You mean this extremely out-of-proportion response to a legitimate critique is not my fault? Thanks for the support. Not.

A Political Victory?

2006-09-23T14:43:00.000+02:00

A thorough (albeit depressing) review of the new law on interrogations:

"both sides appear to believe that the agreement permits the CIA to continue to use sleep deprivation, cold rooms, and other such techniques," even though such techniques do, in fact, constitue a breach of our Geneva obligations."

The NYT doesn't agree, but has other critiques:

It would impose new legal standards that it forbids the courts to enforce. It would guarantee terrorist masterminds charged with war crimes an array of procedural protections. But it would bar hundreds of minor figures and people who say they are innocent bystanders from access to the courts to challenge their potentially lifelong detentions.

I've read the proposed bill, and I'd agree with both source's evaluations. Sigh, a grim day for human rights.