confusion

The Palestinian/Israeli problem… It’s unfortunate that the lessons learned by our parents can so easily be forgotten or overlooked as we march down the same wrong paths others have trod for years simply because they are familiar and well worn. The path to change and attention most often seen is the one marked by the dead, by the victims of the quest for change—from both sides of the conflict.

Hamas and The Islamic Jihad may achieve their goals one day, they may destroy Israel but the road will be long and hard their way. It will be lined with the bodies of countless Palestinians and Israelis. It is unfortunate that their interpretation of their religion gives them the excuse to pursue a bloody path.

As Robert Frost observed; in the woods, there are two paths, and one is less traveled. In this case the people who took the “road less traveled” have names we all know, names like Gandhi and King. People who captured the attention and sympathy of the world by their methods and their results.

Gandhi struggled for the freedom of India and the welfare of his people in a time before CNN; he shook the British Empire to it’s knees and he won his peoples freedom. Palestinian leaders should imagine the impact on Americans and Europeans watching Israeli soldiers struggle trying to figure out how to deal with constant sit-ins and non-violent rallies. What could Israel do? It could arrest them, or beat them, or kill them. All where done to the followers of Martin Luther King, and in only a decade his followers achieved so much. The Israeli army is the one of the best equipped and trained in the world, but what could they do if the Palestinians removed violence from the equation?

Hamas and The Islamic Jihad will not stop, they will not cease till Israel is no more or they are no more. And non-violence may not work. But perhaps someone should suggest it to the Palestinians, Someone like Kofi Anan or Jimmy Carter or Crown Prince Abdullah. Someone.

necessity might be the mother of invention but I think boredom must be the father…

Random Ideas:

1. New power source

You know all that space between the interstates? The median, which is usually (at least in the country) overgrown with random trees and grasses. I say we bulldoze it level and put up those electricity generating windmills every 50 or 60 feet. How much extra power would that produce? I mean the heat rising off the roads must be enough to turn most of the windmills—and it’s not like we are using the land for anything else (except a few farmers who are growing hay or corn, but they could still grow it, they just have to do it around the windmill posts.) Now think how many miles of interstate, and other limited access roads there are in the US. I know that near big cities there is no median but a few Jersey barriers but everywhere else there is lots of land not being used. The government could rent it cheep to the power companies and that would help with the power shortages and it’s environmentally nice power! Given that the bulldozing of the medians might not be so environmentally nice-nice.

2. The Debt

I say we level a tax to go directly to the national debt. Now I see two ways of doing this. 1) charge a 1% tax on every sale—over everything and it goes strait to the debt, no where else, and as soon as the debt is gone, so is the tax! Or 2) two new taxes, one for companies of 5% of profits—strait to the debt, and one for individuals 1% of income—again strait to the debt and as with the sales tax, when the debt is gone so is the tax. Somehow I doubt people would like such a tax, and I know congress would not let it get by them without them sticking their greedy little hands in the cookie jar and diverting the money to some other project. But the dept needs to be paid, the US needs to step up and take responsibility and show the world that we will pay our debts.

3. I know there was a third one…

but I cannot remember what it was right now, so I will stop…

I sat down this morning in depression over not finding a job and lost my self in the frequencies and amplitudes of my music collection. This is the first time since I left for Europe 10 months ago that I have completely lost myself in my music. The feeling of sitting in front of a pair of big speaker with the lights off and completely giving yourself over to the sonic bombardment of your eardrums is one of the most enjoyable I know, and I have missed it. I am a music freak as anyone who really knows me can attest to. My CD collection has, at times topped a thousand CD’s (why I don’t have them anymore is a story about a girl.) At present my music collection numbers somewhere in the 300’s and ranges from Anime soundtracks to Mozart, from Ella Fitzgerald to Nine Inch Nails, God Smack to Sarah McLaughlin, Phantom of the Opera, Tribe Called Quest and Skinny Puppy. I like music. And there is little better in the world than forgetting yourself in the beats and melodies of good music and felling the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end as the tempo crescendos or the singer hits a high note.

Unfortunately, today, that feeling did not last long. As I sat down to write this journal entry I was listening to Rammstein’s Mutter. I checked my email and wrote a few replies then opened up LiveJournal.com and started to write; Rammstein played out and I slipped Shakira’s Laundry Service in… and my computer froze. It took me a few minutes to figure out what happened; the CD which I purchased used in England had a small note on it that I paid no attention to when I purchased it: “will not play on PC/MAC.” I did not pay attention to it when I purchased the CD because I normally run Linux which plays these so called “copy protected” CD’s with no problem. Anyway, I managed to save my journal entry but had to reboot my computer to get the CD out of the drive. I am going to call Sony Music Entertainment Holland B.V. tomorrow and request a new CD. How fucking dare these corporate big wig, greed driven fat cat’s call me a thief simply because I try to play a CD I purchased in my computer. How dare they accuse me of a crime before I have even had the chance to commit one? I purchase a lot of music, but if these ass holes do not provide me with a new, non-“copy protected” copy of Laundry Service I will boycott Sony Music—and I will down load all the music I would have purchased from these greedy fucks from the internet.

beggs still needs a job, beggs needs a job now, beggs thought he might have a job at biap however it looks like corporate politics may have nixed that, in other words management restructured beggs out of a job, beggs cannot seam to get a reply from most companies he applies to and the ones he does get a reply from tend to be based in other countries and tell beggs that unless he has a work permit they cannot help beggs, so beggs is back to square one, beggs has sent out so many resumes that he is fed up with it and yesterday he decided to go and look at volunteer work around the world, now beggs thought that maybe beggs could just call up some volunteer agency and say that beggs would like to drive a land rover full of food and humanitarian type stuff through high mountain passes to starving peoples in parts of the world which beggs could not pronounce, but as beggs found out volunteering to help these charities is not easy, there are lots of questions to be answered and they expect you to pay for the privilege of helping to distribute their charity, now beggs understands that beggs would have to pay for his own airfare and stuff but finds it confusing that he has to pay the charity like he is going on vacation because this is not archeology or something this is humanitarian relief and beggs just wants to help for a while, beggs has no money and so beggs cannot pay to help the poor people beggs is the poor people so beggs filled out a peace corps application and if beggs does not have a job by the end of next month beggs will send in the application and the peace corps will send beggs to some part of the world with a name that beggs cannot pronounce and beggs will work there for two years and have fun but when beggs gets back beggs will be broke and without a job back at square one, now beggs is going to quit writing in beggs livejournal because beggs is tired of referring to beggs in the third person and beggs needs to keep looking for a job.

Well, I did get to go to New York City over the weekend. I apologize for this posting being on Wednesday but I did not have time Monday after I got back and I went to DC with J███████ on Tuesday to the National Gallery.

Anyway, I caught the train on Friday from Union Station at noon, got the New York Penn Station at 3:15—and hour ahead of what I told A█████. The reason I was early was I reserved a ticket for the train that got in at 4:30 but when I looked at the schedule at Union Station that train was an express and my ticket was not good for express trains, they told me I could take the one that was an hour earlier. It’s a good thing I took a ride in to the Metro at 9am with Mike, otherwise I would have been really late! As it was I still had two hours to kill in Union Station—so I bought an issue of the Economist, have not read that since I got back to the US!

I got to Penn station early so I grabbed a slice of good old New York Pizza –Yum!– and read the rest of the Economist while I waited for 4:30. However at 4:30 A█████ was not there, at 5:00 I had him paged, at 5:30 I had him paged, at 6:00 I had him paged and at 6:30 as I was walking over to have him paged yet again I found him. Turned out that he had to work late because the S&P decided to take all foreign stock out of the index, I don’t know he works with stocks and this was a major problem!

We got back to his house at like 7:30 and Sherman had just showed up! So we decided to go out and get some beer and have a night of movies at his house. We ate lots of New York Bagels and watched way too many movies over night—and drank a little.

Next morning we headed to Coney Island, about a mile walk from A█████s house, for the afternoon. We walked along the board walk, got something to drink and rode the Cyclone. A good time was had, I actually managed to get a sun burn on my face and shoulders which have now returned to there natural color—they make Casper look ethnic!

Anyway, we headed out and went clubbing Saturday night, the first place we went was not happening so we headed to a second place that was very good, Central… something or another. Sherman got trashed out of his mind, and on the way into the city I sprained my ankle! We stayed out till 6:00am, had breakfast with a couple of girls A█████ knows who where on their way back from the city at the same time as us, then crawled into bed to sleep the whole day.

We all got up in the early afternoon and watched TV while Sherman worked through his hangover so he could drive home! He left about 5:00 so he could get a good nights sleep and head to work the next morning. A█████ and I went to a baseball game, Coney Island Cyclones, for a while. Watched some friends of his taunt the visiting team in true New Yorker style before they decided to taunt the guy who asked them to stop being so loud.

Sunday night A█████ and I went into the city to catch a movie and dinner with his girlie, Melissa. I think A█████ should have gone to bed because he had to get up at 4:45am and got to work Monday, and Melissa and I both said that we where fine with just hanging out for a while and leaving early, but he insisted on going to see Road to Perdition. I think he just wanted to spend more time having fun and being out with his girlie. Anyway, we dropped her at her place at just after midnight and proceeded to drive back to Brooklyn. Of course since A█████ wanted to get to bed ASAP there was construction on the Battery Tunnel and it took twice as long as it should have, but we did make it to bed just after 1:00am.

Monday morning—at 4:45, we got up and got ready, so we could catch the 6:00am train into the city. A█████ headed to work and I headed to Penn Station. My original plan was to stow my bag at the station and head down the the harbor to go to Liberty and Ellis Island for the day, but since my ankle hurt and there was a 7:10 train back to DC I just grabbed a Coke and hoped on board. I’ll do Liberty and Ellis some other time.

It was a great weekend, got to see Sherman and A█████ again and get drunk and dance—just like in London! I have to go see them again soon, or better yet, when I get an apartment they have to come to DC to see me! The whole weekend can be summed up with what Sherman said when he saw A█████ and Me: “Dude, it’s so weird to see you too and not be in London. Man I miss you guys!”

Now I have to go, C██████ will be back today—that’s gonna be weird since I am at the Mische’s! and there are two Dutch teenagers coming to stay here for a couple days on some church exchange! It’s going to be a circus here! Ciao!