Well we're back from Poland. I can't quite summarize the trip in one sitting but it needs to be recounted. Certainly the highlights should be recapped, but how? I could/should probably write a novel about an American's reintroduction into the old country since it is a little hard to convey how on so many levels it is different from the average American's reality. Especially Seattle's reality. New York is a little more similar to Poland in many respects foremost being its sort of controlled chaos at any given moment. The longer I live away from Seattle, the more I realize what a relaxed, ivory tower it is. No, "Ivory Tower" gives it a negative connotation, I don't mean to do that, but it does seem like it is far removed from many harsh realities that plague so many more dense or more underdeveloped places.
This is a whole other subject entirely. Seattle is really a utopian place, let's leave it at that.
Actually my main point was to give you all a reading assignment. There is a debate about giving kids in the third world cheap laptops. I am not sure why there is a debate, but there is, and you can read about it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/technology/30laptop.html?hp&ex=1164949200&en=65317907d3a0f6d7&ei=5094&partner=homepage
I will weigh in with my opinion, and stories from the Old Country next time. It is not all entirely unrelated see, note that one voice of opposition to the laptop program is Bill Gates who lives in Seattle (Medina), although he is hardly removed from the harsh realities of the third world, he is an amazing philanthropist*, but he does get to go home to Medina at the end of the day and dive around in his money bin like a porpoise.
Read up, and we will reconvene shortly.
*Bill Gates will probably go down in history as the man who saved the planet. Take a quick look at his wikipedia entry concerning his acts of philanthropy and it will bend your mind, especially if you can get your head around the amounts of money involved.
This blog starts out positively enough, chatting about the repercussions of last night's election. Then things get a little hysterical. Sometime about the third paragraph I start berating my poor readers about the state we are about to leave Iraq in. I apologize in advance but I think it has to be said. Iraq, as much as I want it to be, is not a Republican problem even though they stupidly got us into it. It is an American problem, as American as voting out the bastards who started this war. So please, take my ranting with a grain of salt, and try to enjoy:
On this historic day I have been thinking about all the ramifications of a Democratic win, and what might happen in the near future. The biggest splash in the pond is of course the election and the winning back of Congress by the Democratic Party. The first big ripple is the ousting of the moron Donald Rumsfeld. Actually he's not a moron, he's an egotistical bully. he might be clever actually, but not clever enough to know that he was on the wrong side of history. The second big ripple is his replacement being named: former CIA chief Robert Gates. We'll see about him, but so far he has a big advantage over Rumsfeld as the head of the most powerful military on earth ever. That is to say, he has actually been part of it. I think the third big ripple is yet to come, although it might have been W claiming that he is the one that has always been fighting to unify the country and will continue to do so with the new Democratically controlled Congress. It's a little like catching someone peeing in your teapot and having them claim they have always been trying to stop people from peeing in your teapot. Nancy Pelosi, the new speaker of the house, and the next in line for the presidency, if GW and Dick Cheney shoot each other in a hunting accident, has agreed to have lunch with W. While we won't hear what they say at that lunch, I'm betting in will be more polite than what they have been saying about each other leading up to the election.
Pelosi on Bush: "Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he's not a leader, he's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.''
Well said! Huzzah!
Eventually, a ripple is going to effect Iraq. I'm seeing a theme opening up here in the rhetoric on both sides of the war issue that is disturbing me. I was reading Thomas Friedman, on Iraq and he says this:
"A U.S. withdrawal under such conditions would be messy and shameful. But when people are that intent on killing each other there’s not much we can do. As bad as we’ve performed in Iraq, what Iraqis have done to each other, and the little that other Muslims have done to stop them, is an even bigger travesty..."
and then, in conclusion, referring to the two awful choices we must soon make in Iraq, leave it in a decent barely functioning condition, or in the disaster that it is and will descend into:
"These are our real choices in Iraq now: tolerable and awful. It’s time we choose. No more expending lives and treasure for nothing good. The only way we can pursue good in the world again is by either shrinking our presence in Iraq, if Iraqis will step up, or leaving entirely, if they won’t."
The part I am concerned with is the last part of the last sentence: if Iraqis will step up, or leaving entirely, if they won’t.
You see if the Iraqis won't step up and behave like proper Democratic people, what can we do? Go figure! Oh well, this sucks. Let's go home. Does anyone else see the craziness here? If you are a Hawk you should want us to stay and clean up the mess we made. If you are a Dove you should want the same. These people are killing each other because of what we have done! If we leave now, it will be another Rwanda. But this time, we'll have caused it by playing "Build a Democracy in 30 Days" and losing. And we will bear FURTHER responsibility by leaving and letting them at each other's throats.
....if the Iraqis can't stand up.... If they Iraqi's can't stand up it's because we've blown their legs off with 120mm rounds of Depleted Uranium. Wow, Iraq has a real problem over there, a real dictator, let's help (crunch bash bomb) Oops! Now it's even worse! This game sucks, let's get out of here. It isn't a game. these are real people our actions have effected and they deserve every dime of our money we spend on them to make things right again. Can't happen? Things can't ever be right again? Well then, we're stuck with the problem because we caused it. The legacy of colonialism is terrible and I fault Britain and France for the way they have behaved, they are paying the price now, but we are no better if we leave a half-baked democracy to burn itself out in the middle of the Mesopotamian desert.
We win. Finally, after years of Republican control in Congress and the White House, the Dems have taken back the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate as well. This will effectively put the brakes on an out of control foreign policy and a general flouting of the Constitution and a wholesale pillaging by conservative special interest groups. I have to admit, I was not optimistic. The American people have spoken several times over the past 8 years and each time they have put in power the biggest slimeballs imaginable. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the people they voted for really were slimeballs, they just had to prove it. They did, and now they have been removed. Oh if only it was a presidential election year. And oh, if only John Kerry wasn't such an ass-hat* two years ago. That aside, I'm an proud to be an American today. With the world watching and wondering if we really were as retarded as we seemed, we stood up and said, "Not Quite As Retarded".
There will be some gloating for a couple of days, which will really kick into high gear if Montana and Virginia get decided for the Dems. After the gloating though, we will be faced with an unfortunate problem. The Democrats are only slightly less retarded than the Republicans and it is possible that they will self destruct fairly soon. first item on the self destruct agenda: Iraq. The responsibility, for all intents and purposes, is theirs now. GW who actually is responsible is a lame duck and the Dems are in the driver's seat. As Steven Colbert said last night, "The Democrats have had control of the House for a few minutes, and they've already got us into this unending war!"
I'm just worried that we've taken control of the driver's seat, but since the Republicans stripped the car for parts already we are careening downhill without any brakes.
*Ass-hat courtesy of Brap aka Brando aka Tella
Firstly, I have to admit that I'm not voting. I would vote, but I didn't apply my absentee ballot on time from Seatown. Fortunately, I'm not too concerned about it since in neither of the districts I could vote there is a republican I can sink my claws into. This isn't going to stop me from telling you to vote though, you might think I'm a hypocrite. If you are a regular reader you probably already do. I actually think fear of hypocrisy is one of the things that stops people from voting. That and extreme laziness. People might think, "I don't know what's going on, I haven't been following politics so I should stay out of it". Bullhonkey. Do a little research, if they have an "R" next to their name, vote against them. I think also that people who don't follow politics think there isn't much of a difference between the Rs and the Ds. Oh it's all the same. They're all the same. In some ways this is true, but in most ways it's not. For instance, the Republicans are actively trying to ruin your life. I say this assuming you are not a billionaire. Are you a minority of any sort? They hate you. Are you a woman? They hate you. Do you think a disparity between the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich is sickeningly massive? They hate you. Do you think a tiny portion of your tax money (pennies on the dollars you spend to support our military) should go to after-school programs that effectively lower crime in the inner-city? HATE YOU. I'm not kidding folks. If you are gay they are actively trying to TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS. Not just denying you equal protections, they are trying to take away rights you already have. If you are poor they see you as a ineffective worker who deserves their lot in life. Never mind that half of them were born into wealth and the other half are WHITE AMERICAN MALES, the most privileged class in the entire history of the world*, and have 'pulled themselves up by their bootstraps' without anyone helping them with anything except for the fact that they are part of the most privileged class in the entire history of the world*. Someday, people might start getting it into their heads that if you are White, speak decent English, you basically can't not get a job. Double neagative: Can't not. If you are some other shade of melatonin, speak with anything less than perfect English, you must wait behind Whitey until he proves his incompetence (even then, he can't not get the job) and then maybe you will be next in line. Unless another Whitey comes along. Look at George Bush. The perfect Republican actually. White, barely competent, inarticulate, born into wealth and power, Step to the Front of the Line! 'Scuse me Mr. Obama, Bushy's comin' through. GW is so unextraordinary in every way that he actually had to change his accent. From Connecticut White to Southern White, on account of nobody would remember him if he didn't.
Once again I've completely lost my train of thought. Oh! Right, the Republicans are trying to kill you. No? They aren't? Well, yes they are. The other day I saw a team of military recruiters (all black men) scouring the subway station at Broadway Junction, deep in Brooklyn (I was the only white guy). There were five of them, dressed in fatigues, asking young black men what they might be doing for the rest of their lives. I wonder, why aren't they trolling Union Square, near NYU? Why didn't they stop me when I walked right by them? Is it because white middle class people in this country aren't good enough fighters? Or is because poor people are easier to convince to go fight our ill-concieved wars started by a rich White incompetent that was pushed to the front of the line? It turns out that is a lot easier to GET to the front of the line, when all the minorities in front you have been sent off as cannon fodder.
But I'm white and middle class, how are the republicans trying to kill me? Oh don't worry, they aren't leaving you out. Who do you think is driving up health care costs? Who is attacking Social Security and medicare every chance they get? Who's destroying the pensions that people have relied on for decades to support them in their old age? When you get cancer and can't afford to save your own life with drugs that are available for the very rich, you can thank the Republicans for killing you. When you are dying from a disease that might have been cured with government backed stem cell research, but won't be because the Republicans cut all funding, you can thank them for killing you.
But wait, isn't the Republican base lower and middle class white people? Yes. That doesn't make sense. No, it doesn't. I'm not even talking about the tax burdens shifted from the rich to those same middle class Republicans, I don't know enough about it. But make no mistake, the Republicans are acting against the interests of the majority of their own party. Unfortunately they have American Flag blindfolds on, pinned on with little crucifixes.
Of course it's worth mentioning that it was the Republicans, no one else, who took away YOUR Constitutional right of habeas corpus. I hope you haven't forgotten: you, YOU! Reading this, can be sent to prison on the President's discretion without a trial, without an attorney, and most importantly: without evidence.
Vote'm out.
*My assertion that White American Males are the most privileged class in the history of the world can be proved pretty easily using this formula: America is the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world. The people who run America are White American Males. Go to the front of the line.
Some have been rather vocal in their complaints about the irregularity of this blog. I'll take this as a compliment since it is rare that people demand more of things they dislike (More stinky feet please). I have been busy but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking of you four, and of things that might need to be imparted.
For instance, my Dad was out here for the second time last weekend. It was a blast, and I think he got a good taste for what daily living in NY is like. That is to say, we ran into a little trouble while renting a car to take a drive in the country one day. I really should do an actual illustration of the mayhem that was the Alamo Rental garage last Sunday but that might just take much too much time. Also, I had my fill of illustrating today, drawing some imaginarily delicious caramel cascading over the lip of an imaginary bowl. So delicious did it look that I was inspired to eat much candy from the candy bowls dotted around the office, post Halloween overstock. I haven't bitten into any syringes yet, but I'll maybe wish I had in 15 years when my teeth have rotted to brown nubbins. I digress. We took our time getting to the rental place on 12th street since it wasn't a holiday and it was a Sunday, we figured, hey, who wants a car today! Problem 1 in NYC is this: if something is worth doing, at all, there will be a line to do it. This is a hard and fast rule we should have remembered. We even stood in line to get into the Polish Consulate the other night for a show of contemporary Polish art. Now Poland, Polish Art, Polish Consulates are all great, but who would have expected a line to get in? There were serving some delicious, and free, vodka, but who would have expected that? Okay, I guess that shouldn't have taken much imagination. Anyway, I digress further. If you want to do it, you will have to wait until at least ten other people do it first. Done. So, sure enough there was a line out the door of the tiny office inside of the parking garage. There were three computer stations in the office, with one woman working them. My Dad at first speculated that she was taking her sweet time, a reasonable thought as we watched one of the greasemonkeys walk by eating a croissant. It turned out though, that she was one of the most efficient workers on the planet, answering phones, processing payments, taking returns and, most importantly to us, figuring out how to conjure cars out of thin air in order to fill the reservations of the people in line. This was multi-tasking at it's finest, and she kept fairly cheerful too. In fact, everyone in line was cheerful. We couldn't figure out why, although we were laughing along with everyone else. Maybe it was the patent absurdity of trying to run a car rental company when there were visibly no cars to rent. Occasionally, someone would return a car, they keys immediately passed to the next family in line. When a car was by chance returned, the greasemonkeys would slouch into action. They would drop their croissants and jump into the driver's seat, put the accelerator to the floor, and burn rubber diagonally across the 15 foot garage. They moved the cars with such precision, and at such breathtaking speeds that you almost forgot that there was no reason at all to hit speeds exceeding 35 miles an hour for less that two and a half seconds, moving a total of 5 feet from point a to point b. One couple, having rented the one remaining vehicle, stood watching that vehicle which was on the other side of the garage, about 15 feet away, for 10 minutes, until the greasemonkey deemed it agreeable to his digestion to get up, squeeze behind the wheel, and whip across the oil covered cement floor in a harmony of four squealing tires, each hitting its pitch like circular members of a rubber barber shop quartet. When the dust settled the couple was standing slightly closer to their car than they had been, only now they were coated by a thin film of grime and were too frightened to scream.
But the rest of us poor slobs, who hadn't been graced with a vehicle, all were thrilled by the behavior of the attendants. Like anytime you watch someone defy all logic with skillful precision, you simply can't look away. The customers behind us were laughing and joking and making bets on when we would get to the front of the line. I bet a half an hour, fortunately a gentleman's bet since after an hour all I had to lose was my gentlemanliness. That gone, we finally rented our car which had been returned by a surly Frenchman just minutes before. We asked the multi-tasking woman if this scene was a common occurrence and she said yes, every Saturday and Sunday. We asked if she didn't think it was a little poorly operated and she replied with a classic New York response:
"It is what it is."
Finally all three of us jumped into a stack of tires as our car peeled out in front of us and rocked to a standstill just feet from where it started. We piled in and waved to those who had the bad luck to be behind us in line, but with whom we shared the common bond of have stood around in a dark, oily garage on a beautiful Sunday morning, burning valuable daylight while watching what can be only described as an automotive shell-game.
We drove far and wide through the Hudson River valley, surrounded by majestic Manor Houses and golden autumnal trees, but none of really forgot the scene we felt lucky to have escaped from. There were several traffic incidents that required some quick action, New Yorker style. By the end of the day my Dad paid me a compliment, perhaps the finest compliment a father could give his son. It went something like, "There were times I thought I was driving with one of the Alamo garage attendants."
If I'd been a little less weary from the exhausting excursion I might have thought to reply:
"It is what it is."