Humanitarian Aid (3rd hi5)

EPIPHANY 2: HUMANITARIAN AID IS VERSACE!

This is one of my better ones yet. UN, and many other NGOs bitch like no other about the aid that a healthy amount of times fails to reach the ones it was intended for. (Notice, I say the ones intended for, not the ones that need it.) Let's look a bit at WHY that happens.
Well... it's rather easy: b/c miserable people like western shit. IT's CANDY TO THEIR HEARTS.

So picture this: a Serbian brigade, besieging a Bosnian village... UN flips out... but b/c of the nice little bureaucratic system in place, they fail miserably to intervene... But in order for all the member states to look good in front of their constituencies, they decide to send "humanitarian aid" to the ones in need (the Bosnians in this case). They will most likely send a truck-full of blankets, dry food, bottled water, and other great useless things that people under siege may need... like toys for kids and flip flops. Now... the truck full of goodies has to go past the Serbian besieging brigade... Surprisingly enough the village has been holding for a 3 days now. Mr. Serb soldiers are a bit unhappy with the food they eat, b/c its boiled potatoes and some cheap canned beans that the Serb army provides them with. They also sleep in the nice welcoming before-ww2-tents the army provides, and they are using the chronologically similar (probably brown) blankets. But they get distracted from their misery by this nice white Volvo (maybe even Mercedes) truck stopping at their road block. The driver barely speaks one or 2 words in Serbian, and they don’t know any more English... they check the truck, and surprise... they see that BIG FAT BUNDLE OF WESTERN GOODNESS... the RAMEN NOODLES, the FUZZY WUZYY blankets still smelling new, b/c it was only last year that they came out of this wonderful new Chinese factory, and even some BOTTLED water, and soda... And here is when confusion strikes!...

The driver tries to explain to the soldiers that this is not their gov sending them a care-package, but this truck is for the people they are trying to kill. The serbs are confused with the driver too, as they don’t understand why he is not helping them unload the truck faster. They need to save all the strength to fight off the annoyingly resistive Albanians. Now... had the nice white Volvo truck been loaded with cheap Yugoslav blankets, had it had some cans of beans and sausage in sick sauce instead of colorful packages of ramen and other cool vitamins stuffed instant foods, I am almost convinced our Serbian friends wouldn't have been THAT eager to empty the truck.

The point behind my anecdote is: why spend the money on aid from the west, IF you can acquire it from that country. Aid doesn't need to be a treat, aid SHOULD BE AIMED at maintaining people alive... and that can be done with beans and potatoes, and a lighter. That can be done with blankets bought from the one blanket producer or importer in the area... the bigger point is...

Why not re-think aid: instead of "west helping the third world and developing states", why not think of it as the "NGO's facilitating transfers that would keep people alive"... (or how some others call it, south-south transfers)

It seems so damn easy:

1. Needy get a minimum to stay alive in more humane conditions, as opposed to not getting anything at all,
2. Instead of 80% of the aid going to the side that already has the upper hand, it will be more like 40% (pulled out of the ass estimate... the idea is that they will manifest less interest in boring daily beans then in ramen and new western-like blankets)
   
3. It will help the local economy a little
   
4. It will most likely be more cost efficient, if such providers would exist, since transportation/distribution costs will be considerably reduced...
   

GOD, I am smart.

Acceptable Econ Perspective

Hehe... This guy has some good points... almost doing what I am trying to... talk about freedom, just with more focus... on econ... econ that I kinda hate... decent articles though.



Global Economic Freedom

Failed States (2nd hi5)

Epiphany Set One - Apr. 07, 2006 at 12:50 AM



A while ago I realized I have epiphanies striking me quite often, and quite hard. Which is good. I usually incorporate them in my fragile little mind(-set) right away, and never really keep track of them, and I rarely share them with people... I sometimes share, when I see fit, but I am pretty bad with giving away my intellectual property. But maybe it's the time to change that... maybe i should start spreading my immense, and original knowledge and reservoir of ideas... I can only hope this will at one point trigger a butterfly effect that will in turn create a world of... me's.

(A side note w/ respect to the idea of a world of me's: As opposed to popular belief, that people wouldn't be able to, or wouldn't quite enjoy dating a "them self", just of the opposite sex... I think I could. Better yet, I believe I could live in a world of myselves. And there is a very simple reason for that. I am nothing in particular. Whatever defines me is incredibly relative and confined to my puny experience in this world. I have a set of general guidelines on which I build my "standards" but these guidelines can yield an infinite number of completely different people. They are simple things... like "don't lie" or "don't fuckin lie to YOURSELF!")

So... Back at epiphanies that make the world a better place. Speaking of peacekeeping. I am sure you all know wtf UN peacekeeping (PK) missions are, because you are not tards, and you have fricking internet to see this page. Straight away we need to clarify some basic stuff about PK. It is morally the right thing to do these days(I am not sure it was ethically right 100 years ago nor that it will be right in 5 years from now... but NOW, the vast majority thinks it is right... how you do it? that's where things get iffy). Even peacemaking is (that is making peace by force). However, it so happens that after a third of the population of mainland good ol' Europe died in what they call WW2, they made this institution called the UN. And UN works like shit when it comes to SOLVING CONFLICTS... mainly because... well let's just say times change (I'm not gonna talk ab this at all... I'm sure I'll have other opportunities to present my brilliant perspectives on UN, the states and the beloved Security Council) In case, I wasn't very clear in the previous sentence... UN is like an autistic kid when it comes to solving conflict... their ideas are really cool, smart, sometimes brilliant, and you wonder where they came up with them... HOWEVER, THEY ARE COMPLETELY SOCIALLY INAPT. (ie. UN, again WHEN DEALING WITH CONFLICTS, is waaay out of touch with reality.) While the philosophy behind PK is commendable, the way to implement it is lacking greatly! NEVERTHELESS... this is all we have right now, so we have to work with it. Just because I am tired I won't discuss all the issues related to WTF peacekeeing isn't doing what (working how) it should. That being said, you can just go to http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/index.asp to read several weeks, if not months worth of documentation, about PK. This way you will understand what I will be talking about in my next lines.


EPIPHANY 1: SEND EVERYONE OUT... DESERT THE COUNTRY!

Clearly, Haiti will never be pulled out of the black hole that sucked them in... At least not with the current methods and resources the international community is making available for their cause. Those people have ZERO trees left on that little half of island of theirs. The international community is in denial, and is enough literature out there about why this happens. I, in my eternal wisdom have found the solution that they will in several years if not decades... "If you can't save them, USE THEM". There is no way in HELL Haiti can become a functional state at a price anyone these days is willing to pay... What to do? What to do? Offer everyone a chance to emigrate. If all the money poured into Haiti in form of aid (humanitarian, structural, developmental), reconstruction, NGO action and development funding, etc would be used to buy plane tickets for everyone, we would've solved the problem by now... only PK is about $400 000/year.. for 10 years... that's 4 bil... and I am sure there were a lot more tards throwing money at the problem during this time... so we have about 5-6 billion of green George Washingtons, that went absolutely nowhere... because the country is in as big of a mess as it was 15 years ago. Minus the trees, and the few running businesses. For that money you can provide each of the 7 mil inhabitants with an $800 plane ticket.. shit you can even organize charter flights for 1/3 of that price... and send them where? EVERYWHERE... spread them around the world as thin as possible... about a million will go to china, another one to India... and of course Romania will get its proportional share of 23000 Haitians... and as you spread them inside the country... that will have an impact of 2000 Haitians in my wonderful Bucharest-city. I think I could live with it.

Some may argue, it is immoral for us to make this decision for them. The decision to break up a country like that... some may argue that you are ruining their culture... well! These are all valid arguments. How realistic are they? who's decision is it ultimately..? if these people would be offered a chance to leave their misery along with their culture... would they take it or leave it? I don't know... i think many will take it.. And perhaps many won't... but why not save the ones that would take this offer? why not offer the ones that truly believe they have a connection with that half of an island a chance to put all their passion and energy into creating something and getting it going, instead of having UN "implementing" "monitoring" and "relieving"... give them the support, BUT let the ones that CARE do it, and save the desperate ones.

I agree, Haiti is rather small, what do you do with places like Somalia? I don't know... but really this ideea of proportional dispertion through the world seems pretty good.

Angry @ fakeness (1st hi5)

UGH! AZI E PRIMA ZI CAND SCRIU U(I)N JURNAL - Apr. 04, 2006 at 08:18 PM

...sorry for whoever wants to read this and then realizes it's in English, despite me being Romanian... I am no less of a Romanian if I am not writing in Romanian... it's not like I show off my English skills... I guess I am just too much of a world citizen. You can go ahead and hate me for losing my Romanian hood but you'd be idiots, b/c I am still Romanian, and you can't do anything about it, besides bitch inside your little minds.

For some reason this evening I decided to start writing a journal... I think the reason is hate. I've always seen journals as absolutely useless pieces in people's lives... time consumers... hinderers of development (I don't even know if that word-combo exists... from now on, I will not apologize, for any miss-spellings, nor for any made up words... USE YOUR IMAGINATION). However... today I was wondering online, despite the two extended deadline papers that I need to write... And guess what... hi5 comes up... and I start looking through people's profiles, and old friends (actually I am not even sure if they still see me as a friend) pictures, and all that... and there was a shitload of variation... there are so many reasons making people prepare their profiles... it's incredible... anyway... I could only imagine each of your thought processes when you were writing your profiles.... and some of the things I was imagining made me want to update my profile too.... as I started updating stuff... I ran into "favourite movies section" and I snapped. The results you can see in my profile... anger all over. Combined with childish submissiveness (especially when it comes to arrested development, b/c it cracks me up)... you may wonder anger against what?? Well... I DON'T FUCKIN KNOW... had I known, I would've addressed it... but I have no clue... I guess it must be just me being pissed of at how we waste our life not being sincere thinking about how a hat can... get us what we want and need... BRRR! Wrong answer... NOT being realistic about what you really are can't possibly ever bring you full and deep satisfaction and happiness. Why bother to say you like Crash, if it didn't make you CRY for 2 hours? Why on earth say you like this and that artist when you are not able to leave during the finals week and go to his concert/show/gig? WHY THE FUCK SAY YOU LIKE BOOKS, if they didn't make you become someone ELSE!? UGH... excuse my anger... it's just this environment...

I realized what is the different in US life vs. other places in the world... (and by world, I mean Europe from my experience, and South America, Asia, Africa and Middle East from what people/friends say) It's the GRASS.... US has green grass... equally cut... perfect, flawless, no weeds, no bugs, no moles... you sit in the freshly cut grass and it's lovely; it's perfect... nothing crawling on your neck, no dog shit on your pants nor any stings from friggin crazy weeds... oooh... but does the silence get you. OMFG IT DOES! ohoho.... it is SO! DAMN! FUCKING! LONELY! IN THE GRASS... OMFG! and all you can see around you is even more perfectly cut grass...

pffff... it's not like the Europeans don't have their shit going too... racist, Eurocentric mofos. And South Americans have their sentimantally impulsive, and inequalitarian ways... and Africans know everything, including what it means to fuck without a latex, and THEY LIKE IT! And the damn Asians are the cradle of civilization and they work their asses of so they most likely are Asian-centric but I can't quite vouch for that. Anyway... the bigger point is... PEOPLE ARE FUCKING LIMITED! Get the hell out of your damn countries and see the differences and understand them (not that I understand them... I merely see them and get upset for not having enough people that can explain to me WTF is going on around me and with me... UGH!)
All right ... that's about it... my battery is at 13%... I think it's high time I stop.... I am pretty sure, I will never write here again... but who knows. Maybe I will be pissed off another day, and HI5 will make me puke once more... case in which, WORRY NOT! I will puke my obnoxious senseless rant here...


And I can't quite figure out why I write here anyway... I think I almost expect everyone to read it... and I almost expect an answer... but not really... I pretend I don't b/c I am afraid of being disappointed... that no one cares, that I am an idiot... that they(you) will say things I donýt want to hear.... or say things just to say things. And know I will add another of those odd hopeful expectations that show up every time I open my inbox. I almost feel this looks like a scream for attention. It doesn't matter as long as anything that results from it is real. I LOVE REAL!

Why

Why Am I Doing This?


I think I will use this blog to let people know what pisses me off. It will be about current events, and things that we encounter in our everyday lives... And by "WE" I mean many things:

• Romanians,
  
• students,
  
• students in US colleges
  
• foreign students in US colleges,
  
• people that are interested in IR because it's incredibly fascinating, not b/c it sounds cool or they got nothing better to do,
  
• people that want to make the world a better place
• people from urban areas living a small towns
• Europeans
• Americans
• haters of mediocrity, pesimism and self-limitation
  
• and the list can go on and on...
  

As I said before, I will probably be all over the place, but eventually I think I will find some reason behind my madness... For now I just need to write things down. This way I won't go crazy by just talking to myslef. I will feel there is a dialogue... at least in my mind it will be. I hope this will keep me off the antidepressants... or other nice "candy" that people need when they go to school in such a small place...
I have started writting about a month ago, actually. One night, I was just crusing through HI5, a teen networking website, one of many others... like friendster, myspace or (probably the most succesfull in the long run, if not already) facebook. What is special about HI5 is that it seems cheesier, cheaper, more mediocre than any of the above mentioned. It is not that the people are necesarry stupider, but they seem to take out the WORST in them... thus the place would make anyone in their right mind puke their inside out after 10 minutes of browsing through people's profiles.
I, however, browsed for about an hour. My sickness was at such a high level, that something snapped. I felt the need to take out all the anger I was accumulating silently inside me, in order to prevent me from imploding...

The following posts will be made of bits and pieces from the HI5 anger period.

The Begining

So, anyway this is my blogspot thingy... I know very little about blogging... I only read random posts from random people... it is quite an interesting phneomenon, so I'll just make it my own experience... I guess that's what's blogging is all about... being a tard, (or passionate about something) in front of everyone.

I do want to talk a bit my blog will probably find its way eventually... but as it stands right now, it will include a varity of subjects...

1. I am international relations maniac... thus many posts will have an IR related theme, or at least flavor to them... UN will not be an uncommon set of letters.
2. I have lived in US for 3 years now, and in Denmark for 6 months... Since I am still in US, I will talk/complain/praise things on this left side of the Atlantic.
3. At times I will prolly go philosophical, trying to answer life's greatest questions
   
4. I am still young and foolish. In many of the posts you will see anger, bitching, or not so strong arguments... I don't claim what I comes out of my mouth is anything BUT a personal opinion, but this is the universal truth to me, until I am proven wrong....

Yeah... I guess that's all I have for now... i am just a little angry foreigner in a country that the more I understand the more confused I am when I try to picture how I feel about it.