Saturday, October 07, 2006
AK-47's coming out
While the practical thing to do for the ones in charge of the soldiers on the ground is not to discourage the practice of drop weapons (in order to mentain control of the troops) it is immoral and dangerous for the Pentagon to continue ignoring it. One can only hope that the
You can find the article in
NY Times
BBC News
Friday, October 06, 2006
2-D, 3-D and 4-D or Why is it that the US and Europe don’t click-clack?
This is how I see Americans and myself, here. Two entities that have 2 dimensions in common, but they can’t perceive each other’s third dimension. It is not the case that Americans just have other values than Europeans and South Americans. Their entire system of references and thinking is different, to such an extent that it makes it very difficult to explore, and understand.
Raping Bosnians Like an American
I am wondering if it is only me going nuts and becoming excessively sensitive, or these things I am seeing, actually happen and not so many acknowledge them. Unfortunately for me I have been studying (or learning about) international relations in more or less formal settings pretty much since I was 8-9. I say unfortunately because it messes up your mind and soul in a way chemistry or anthropology, or economics do not. I am not going to blame Americans for being ignorant, because anyone that did a fair amount of globetrotting knows that other countries are equally or even less knowledgeable about topics of international relations (I am talking about the educated top here, not the majority of the population.) But Americans have something very particular about the way they carry around their ignorance. It is something more than the stereotypical pride and lack of understanding of their limitations. It is an inability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. I am sure there are good socio-economic-historical-anthro-geo-political reasons for that… but Americans are lacking the ability to not compare everything they see or hear with something they are disgustingly familiar with.
It can be a baked dish of Gruyere-shrimp orecchiette that is discharged as “just a casserole.” And it can be ranting about the rape as a war-crime in
“oh we understand how this is different: it is archaic! The problem in
Back
Well... not really for them but more for myself. There is just too much good stuff happening for me not to blog it. I am waiting for the improbable butterfly effect that will make the world perfect from my little flaps.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
dry as a nut
- besides work I bearly talk to anyone and certainly not someone that would push my noodle's buttons
- I am in such a disposition that I am terrified of thinking... doing so would cause both immesurable pain and frustrating questions with answers I would prefere not to hear (again) or worse, without any answers that I know of... and since I really dont have too many dialogue partners... so there! I am going to be dead for a while.
Friday, June 02, 2006
"Drop weapons"
You see news about Iraqis shooting each other and blowing their stuff up, and taking American troops with them as much as they can in the process. But why hate the liberators? Is it their religion, their skin color, their illegitimate invasion or the consequent illegitimate occupation?
Or is it d) all of the above?
I am thinking "drop weapons" are really not helping the American popularity in Iraq. But what are "drop weapons"? Let's say a civilian is shot down willingly, by mistake or b/c it is a potential "terrorists" (this is preventive strike at the micro-level... better shoot down civilians that may buy weapons in the next years if not months.) Well... human rights associations go berserk: not good (of course the process involves several steps in which other organizations or people are involved.) However, if the dead Iraqis are found by the ambulance workers with an ak47 lying next to them... there you have it: they are combatants. On top of their tens of pounds of compulsory gear, Americans (and perhaps the British too) often carry a few AK 47’s... you know... just in case "combatants" show up. So drop weapons are the weapons dropped by (US) soldiers next to dead (unarmed… civilians or not) Iraqis in order to smoothen the bureaucratic mechanism (and we know how much the US hates bureaucracy, including the UN one) that would be set in motion by killings of civilians.
I found out about the practice from a friend of a friend of a friend. He's been fighting in Iraq for a while, and told several stories about this ingenious practice. Indeed it takes care of a problem the Pentagon had at the beginning of the war... with defining combatants... as they were saying "since they are not wearing uniforms the terrorists can just throw their weapon in a ditch seconds before our soldiers get them and demand civilian treatment. We need to redefine combatants and civilians." There you have it: drop weapons solve the problem of terro-villians... by virtue of being Iraqi they are all combatants, they just don’t know it.
This also explains why situations such as Ishaqi will be probably more common and will stop making the front page.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
muzik
I doubt there is any sane person that would not like music PERIOD... music is like food for the mind almost... everyone needs and likes it... it's just a question of what exactly are you expecting out of your music. I apologize for repeating myself but I am still astonished at the various roles it fulfills for each individual. Besides the obvious religious/cultural purposes that are astonishing by default, even looking at the "western world" you still see HUGE differences. On on side of the Athlantic you have a very powerful rock culture, compeeting (or threatened, depending on your perspective) by hip-hop. On the other you have club music... which is mainly electronic and "dance"... this is not to say that hip hop and rock dont have a presence... but the word of the street is electronic. It is not just that people like different music. These preference show underlying essential cultural differences. What europeans get and expect out of their music is completely opposed to what americans do. (yada yada... this is a gross generalization OF COURSE... i am speaking in large numbers... percentages etc...)
I cannot understand the rock concert culture, and they cannot under any circumstances understand club/electronic culture... they are excited over listening in concert to a band that was "hot" 30 years ago, while I am excited about going to a club and listening to a known song that was unrecognizebilly mutilated in their opinion... I go in for the feeling.. they go in for the... words? that are meaningless in this country anyway.. but yeah... INTERESTING STUFF I SAY...
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Are we not gay?
Homosexuality is unnatural. It can't be normal. Gay mating results in nothing but pleasure, but has no benefit for humans. The human race will vanish if the entire society would embrace this depravation. Indeed, as good humans, we should tolerate the unfortunate deviants but never join them... you owe this to your race.
Homosexuality is genetic, you are born with it. You can't escape it till death. Your life as a gay person will be completely different than the life of more than 90% of the population... This is the cross they have to carry…
“I find individuals of the opposite sex completely sexually repugnant.”
Gay people are smart, witty, have good taste in clothes, food, they are intelligent and artistic; sensitive and sensible. They have initiated gay fashion, that says a lot about their influence. How many western urban respectable women don’t have a GBF?
These are just several of the stands on homosexuality. I don't side with any of them (they are extremes anyway.) However I can see that most people (between themselves and the image of themselves that they have to paint in different circles) need to juggle with these 3 main poses... Everyone has them in very fluid "concentrations" that change depending on the environment they find themselves in... So much people think of “their stand” that the true opinions are rarely expressed and most often forgotten or pushed in dark corners of your mind.
The gay issue has reached an impasse. The dialogue has become close to inexistent. Discussion about (and with) "gay" is stuck between taboo, ridicule and cliché. I doubt that this is anyone's fault in particular... NOR it is the society's fault (sociology has good observations but it becomes trivial when it blames society for any societal malfunctions.) Talking about homosexuality has become one (maybe a few?) beaten path(s)... talking to homosexuals has so far resulted in a joyful presentation of the gay perspective and how misunderstood it was. Anger and frustration ensue. Any attempts to digress and explore other dimensions of homosexuality have materialized in abrupt ends of conversations. The defense mechanisms trigger, and people suddenly become offended at the ignorant straight person "questioning" their sincerity and their homosexuality.
We live in an environment conducive to this. It is what we do, what we think and what we are taught that maintain the social constructions in place (they are equally hurtful if they trigger either a repression of homosexuality or embracing it as the single most defining part of one's identity.)
What if all these would disappear... what if the build-up of what is socially acceptable masculine, feminine and right would all be erased from our minds? I would bet money and maybe a limb that homosexual sex will occur at similar levels (if not higher) as it does right now. The demographics would be very different. While a number of gay would probably embrace bisexuality, most certainly a number of people that call themselves straight right now will follow their natural impulses. Anyone has, at one point, thought about a same sex person “DAMN! They’re good looking!” but the thought stops there, because everything around you tells you to block it. People need affection and love from both men and women. Both straights and gays repress one of their needs…
Sunday, May 14, 2006
The Romanian in the West ("Romanul in strainatate")
This is a personal translation of a very interesting article I read a couple of days ago. I believe it applies to vast number of people that travel/live in other countries than the ones they grow up in and still maintain strong connections to their departure country.
The original title is "Romanul in strainatate." Andrei Plesu is the author: a Romanian scholar who explored several fields, but is known more for his writings in cultural anthropology and philosophy. He was briefly involved in politics as Minister of Culture and Foreign Affairs Minister. The article may have acquired my personal bias in the translation process. Perhaps I will update an improved, more readable version soon.
He makes an enormous amount of claims (that are more or less obvious). So I will comment on it in several days.
"Any Romanian outside the country experiences, more or less willingly, both the intensity and the ridicule of the double identity (“dedublare”). From this perspective, to travel can be equated with spending some time in the chambers of schizophrenia. You are in two places at the same time: drawn by the prestige and astonishing unexpected of one and by the comfortable domestic routine of the other. You can’t hold back from completely plunging in the novelty of where you are without craving for the scents and sounds from home. Since the emergence of the internet, this experience of the bi-location is yet more perverted. You are confronted with two series of news papers and breaking news bulletins. A perfect exercise of relativism… is reducing things at their “real scale.” The Diaspora lives this situation with maximum intensity that often has destabilizing effects. Even a short stay outside the borders, can have a similarly devastating result.
I have met compatriots that are so essentially different “at home” and “in exile” that it becomes close to impossible for one to estimate their true identity, to distinguish between the authentic and disguised. At home, the exiled is a combination of agrarian sentimentalism and pedagogical delirium. He comes from “the West” from the “normal world.” Consequently, he knows better than you, the un-traveled and uncultured individual at home about democracy, science, and any other area of academics. He is irritated by what he sees, critical… frantic even. On the other hand, in his adoptive country he is the complete opposite. He is self-conscious, obsessed with being marginalized, careful not to jeopardizing his future. Insecure, compliant, hypocritical, a “foreigner” to the others and tormented by a “foreign” language (regardless of how well he speaks it) the individual prefers being passive rather than daring, submissive rather than defying. He winds up developing an interior aversion towards the hosts. In
If they are religious they are faced with the hell itself: deep inside they need to comprise needed vanity and required submissiveness. They need to accommodate the necessary culture of love in a poisonous mindset of hate. Angry (alternatively or simultaneously) with both their co-nationals and with the Westerners, intoxicated with frustrations and untamed ambitions, switching from grand rides at home to muddy crawls at their new home, depressed, suborned… these people are the epithemy of misery. They are not comfortable anywhere anymore, they become connected to their places through nothing but pure resentment. Before 1989, the Iron Curtain and the “communists” were entirely to be blamed for such torn destinies. Today however, despite the disappointments and difficulties
PS: I do apologize, as my translation fails to capture the entire subtlety of the article, but I believe I preserved the essence.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Romanians and "kinda sucky" Americans
WTF... i don't know why I am rambling about this. I just saw one of my compatriots' online image (ie. profile) in which he was going on and on about how Romanians are better(I think the reason was that "romanians go clubbing") and Americans kinda suck... And I have met a few other people that explained to me what wrong of a perception americans have ab their country... asking if they have pizza and sponge bob, when in fact they go to a very good private school, and many(I am pretty sure they said "most," actually) people go to such schools.
They were all reminders of me the first year here... how easy it is not to see our own damn forests because of the trees around us. Just a flagdizzle for the ones that are tempted to do the same... bitching about someone else's forest without even knowing what's behind the first line of trees of your forest sounds just plain stupid for any mildly-intelligent person.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Humanitarian Aid (3rd hi5)
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:
- Needy get a minimum to stay alive in more humane conditions, as opposed to not getting anything at all,
- 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)
- It will help the local economy a little
- 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
Global Economic Freedom
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Failed States (2nd hi5)
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)
...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
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...
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
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...
- 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.
- 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.
- At times I will prolly go philosophical, trying to answer life's greatest questions
- 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.