Category: ranting

I’ve read this article [newstatesman.com] on the hidden cost of Americas new adventures in Mesopotamia before, but someone just forwarded it to me again.

It’s very depressing. Especially this part about the Middle East Marshal plan that could have been:

In their main paper, Bilmes and Stiglitz come up with [a better way the money could have been spent]: “We could have had a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, or the developing countries, that might have succeeded in winning hearts and minds.”

What a historic triumph that would have been for Bush. Instead, his legacy to generations of Americans will be a needless debt of at least $2.5trn, what his own defence secretary describes as a four-way civil war in Iraq, dangerous instability in the Middle East, and increasingly entrenched hatred of the United States throughout the world.

I don’t think anyone in the current government—Republican or Democrat—can think like that. I don’t think most Americans can think like that and they would tar and feather—if not burn at the stake—anyone who suggested we give half a trillion dollars to a Middle East development effort that did not include gun toting patriotism and cheep oil. I think most Americans are generally uninterested in what happens in the Middle East unless some fear monger stands up and says that if we don’t do something we will have suicide bomber on the streets of rural America. I think most Americans compassion stops at the border. And most Americans don’t want to see a large amount of money go anywhere but back in their pockets.

I heard a speaker in collage say that “humanitarianism is the product of Western leisure time.” (I thought it was Desmond Tutu, but I can’t find a reference now). The logic of that statement strikes me as inescapable: who has the time to worry about people who might be starving or freezing to death halfway around the world when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, if it’s coming at all. However I think that America, at least those who are not millionaires, who don’t have charitable foundations named after them, has moved beyond caring about less fortunate people in other parts of the world. Caring for those outside of your own family is rare in America, caring for those outside your community, church, town or country amounts to “oh, thats horrible.” And it takes something like the Boxing Day Tsunami—something that killed a quarter or a million people to make us dig into our pockets.

If you drive a BMW, a Hummer, a Mercedes or the like, if you own a house, eat out a few times a month, take vacations then you have no excuse for not donating [brandeis.edu] a few hundred dollars a year to some charity. Try the Red Cross [icrc.org], Oxfam [oxfam.org.uk], or any number or others. There are many excuses why people don’t donate but they all break down into only a few reasons: you’re too poor, you’re too lazy, you don’t care, you never thought about it.

America does not give a lot of money as a country to humanitarian efforts, it used to be able to rely on the charity of it’s citizens and not have to. Today most of it’s citizens don’t give and the government has not picked up the slack. If we can spend $2.5 TRILLION on Iraq we should be able to spend more, as individuals and as a country, on humanitarianism.

I am currently in Israel for training on a new role in my current company. Three weeks of ‘training’ and then a week to explore the sights and sounds of the holy land. Candice will be joining me in my falafel eating enterprise for a week and we might even make a side trip to Istanbul—used to be Constantinople, why they changed it I can’t say [google.com]… :)

The experience of flying El Al was quite interesting. I thought Heathrow had security issues… The went through every piece of my luggage and repacked several of the carry on items in the checked luggage. On top of that they took several random things out of my luggage and carry on and said they ‘raised alarms’ so I got to answer all types of questions about my Gary Fong Light Sphere II [garyfonginc.com], my Flickr Minis [moo.com], a travel toiletries bag, and a 50mm Prime lens.

Then I got to sit next to a rather large Israelite who smelled like a chimney and sounded like he had TB… On top of that he had a bright and sunny personality and spoke only Hebrew… Makes for a wonderful 12 hours flight.

Anyway, I’m here now and don’t have to worry about anal probing security for the next four weeks. I hope to make it to Jerusalem on the weekend to take some photos and explore the markets.

Wesley Autrey jumped in front of an oncoming subway train in New York. To help someone else who had fallen in. Both were uninjured after the train passed over them –with a few centimeters to spare. Amid all the awards and checks from famous people and big companies, amid the rush to be photographed with the hero, the hero reminded everyone of a simple sentiment, oft forgotten: “You see somebody in distress, you help out.” [reuters.com]

As refreshing as it is to see a everyman as a hero it is just as disgusting to watch the feeding frenzy. To see Donald Trump, Mayor Bloomberg, The Walt Disney Co, and others line up for the photo op, rushing to share the spotlight for a few moments to get some good press. If Wesley Autrey is a shinning example of humanity, deserving of praise, then all the others crowding into the photos are the greedy heart of capitalism that deserves to be shunned. I don’t begrudge Autrey the money they give him, but I despise their reasons for giving. But Capitalism works on greed and maybe others will be more likely to help an unfortunate soul now that they think they might get paid for it. Heroes don’t ask for payment but maybe Nietzsche was right?

The preparations are almost done.

The invitations have been sent.

I’m ready.

I’ve always wanted to be married. I’m not sure why. I guess it’s a societal norm that I absorbed at some point. Maybe it’s because I want kids and when I was growing up the kids who did not have two married parents were ‘different.’ Of course this was the hight of the divorce culture in the US: the mid-80’s. For whatever reason I have thought of marriage several times over the years. I was never really ready but I knew I wanted to be married. Last December I decided I had someone I wanted to hang on to for the rest of my life.

It’s been a year since I gave away a rock and now the final days are ticking away before the wedding. I’m excited an nervous. I don’t expect anything material to change in my live once Candice and I are married but hopefully our love will continue to grow and we will become closer over the many years.

Life is a long journey, I’ve come from Charlottesville to London and now to Singapore. Along the way I have met many friends and loves and it is not without much thought that I now enter into marriage. From now the journey is no longer mine but ours, mine and Candice’s, and I look forward to all the future has to offer us and a long journey.

Every society on earth has some form of marriage I believe and it must server some deep rooted biological and psychological need and it is great that it also such a great joy. Though nothing material will change in my life when I say the words and sign the paper but I expect that in a very real sense everything will change. I can’t wait.

In the last few days before our wedding I won’t be bothered to record my life here but before I sign off for the next few weeks or month I wanted to say here, for everyone that I am ready, that I am in love and that I look forward to waking up next to my wife everyday for the rest of my life and to get lost in her eyes, in her smile and in her laugh.

I love you Babe.

Via S██████’s Livejournal [livejournal.com] I just read the best description of Singapore ever. Don’t let the fact that it was published in 1993 dissuade you from reading it: other then the to newspaper articles referenced being from ’93 the article could have been written yesterday.

Here’s a sample:

Singapore is a relentlessly G-rated experience, micromanaged by a state that has the look and feel of a very large corporation. If IBM had ever bothered to actually possess a physical country, that country might have had a lot in common with Singapore. There’s a certain white-shirted constraint, an absolute humorlessness in the way Singapore Ltd. operates; conformity here is the prime directive, and the fuzzier brands of creativity are in extremely short supply.

And better…

The local papers, including one curiously denatured tabloid, New Paper, are essentially organs of the state, instruments of only the most desirable propagation. This ceaseless boosterism, in the service of order, health, prosperity, and the Singaporean way, quickly induces a species of low-key Orwellian dread. (The feeling that Big Brother is coming at you from behind a happy face does nothing to alleviate this.) It would be possible, certainly, to live in Singapore and remain largely in touch with what was happening elsewhere. Only certain tonalities would be muted, or tuned out entirely, if possible. . . .

I have a feeling this issue of Wired was not on sale in Singapore and thought some things have changed (you can get Cosmo here now. You can even watch bar-top dancing in some pubs) most of this article is very applicable to life here in Singapore.

Most interesting is this article actually pre-dates the Micheal Fay incident!

Read on: Disneyland with the Death Penalty [Wired.com].