It's disgusting to hear about the slaughter of all those people in Burma. I keep thinking about what happened in Cambodia, how 25% of the population were murdered by Khmer Rouge, and I wonder how things will really unfold for the Burmese as they have no ability to overcome the corrupt government that has bedeviled them for decades.
I keep thinking of Gandhi's methods and the fact that in order for passive resistance to work, there needs to be some sense of shame on the part of the agressors. In cases such as Khmer Rouge or asshats like Hitler or Pol Pot, there's no question of shame, no matter what anyone in U2 says. The peoples' ploughshares will not keep them alive.
Burma is a multi-nation state and most of these ethnicities don't recognize the military government that's been terrorizing them, but that certainly won't keep that government from oppressing them all. It's a mess, and I hope the people will rise en masse and overthrow the goons, but the average Burmese citizen has to rely on the good intentions of the gubmint, and the gubmint relies on their monopoly of fire power and so it goes and has gone, really, for decades, with little hope of change.
There's a movie based on a true story of an American doctor who got stuck in Burma (in the 80s, I think) called Beyond Rangoon. Laura Bowman was traveling and missed her flight out of Burma and got stuck there during a military crackdown. I'm sure there's no end of over-simplification and embroidery in the film, but the man who plays the professor-turned-tour-guide is reenacting his life, basically, and his role in Laura Bowman's story.
I don't have anything brilliant or insightful to say about this, but I do keep remembering other times in recent history when it's been impossible to intervene, when we knew what was happening at that very moment somewhere else and all we could do is sit on our hands. During the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, I remember news images of thousands of bodies floating from Rwanda on the river Ruzizi and spilling out into Lake Tanganyika. Unthinkable.
I wish people weren't so crappy to each other. But since so many obviously have their caps set to run roughshod over the rest of civilization, I am a firm believer in having the means of self-defense at the ready and in the hands of the common man. I think we all need to look to the world, watch and learn, and refuse to accept the kind of bullshit other nations are being forced to accept, be they European players overrun by religious fanatics or a disarmed public who must do the bidding of the military junta du jour.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Monday, October 01, 2007
Whew! I feel so refreshed!
Sorry I dropped a stitch there - meant to post for Sunday, but was tied up with extended family bidness and finishing a scarf I've been crocheting for a couple weeks. I'm excited, because that's the first real usable crochet project I've finished in several years. Huzzah!
Anyhoo, about Saturday night:
I told little sister what I wanted from her for my birthday was for us to go to the Dallas Observer "Best of Dallas" awards Saturday at House of Blues. This was my first time in HOB, and I must say it's a marvelous venue. I'll look forward to seeing a band there. However, it was well evil to consider waiting in the interminable line to get a free drink, so I went to the paying bar where $10 (I know! Evil was everywhere) fetched a couple bottles of Stella Artois. I joined my sister in line for the buffet, and the food was great.
We ate and drank our beers and decided we were too cool for the room - much of the crowd seemed like a cookie-press gridwork of sorority/frat-lings, and rather unoriginal, at that. So we moseyed on over to Cafe Rembrandt, where they had Stella Artois on draught - even better. The space next door was where the venerated Starck Club was originally, a favorite haunt of mine 20+ years ago. Super cool.
Now the space is home to an 18 & up club owned by Dennis Rodman, and they have a dwarf doorman of foreign extraction. We sat side by side on the patio in front, marveling at the parade of 18-ish year old hoochie mamas streaming up to the place. Across the entry drive, always at least four and sometimes six police officers sat watching, waiting for trouble.
A person I know through work happened by and sat talking with us for a wee bit, and he said late at night, they toss scrappers out of that club bloodied and itching for more of a bust-up, apparently. Quite a step down from the oozing-cool urbanity of Starck Club. Ah, but nothing ever lasts, does it?
Anyway, we left downtown and headed back to her house where I was to spend the night. We decided to stop at a biker bar where sis used to crack the whip on the hellions as a barmaid. At least 3 M.C. clubs hang out at this joint, but it was a pretty low-key evening. Actually, one dividend of a slow night was that we only stank of smoke, rather than actually crossing over to reeking territory afterward.
We walked in and a giant doorman greeted Sis and she introduced him to me. She introduced me to a few other people and she chatted a bit. I noticed a woman with blonde hair being kind of rowdy with a pack of girlfriends at the bar, even though she didn't seem the barfly-type. She was holding a fold-out fan, and I thought this was so unusual that I instantly liked her. There was a band playing 80s hits, and we went to a table tucked discreetly back from the center of the room and did some people-watching.
Blocked from our view completely was an area populated entirely by the celebrants of a birthday gathering, but we got a good gander of them when they sashayed out onto the dancefloor. This whole group was very white, middle-class, too-recently-severely-groomed to have been bikers. The core group of four guys seemed to have been airlifted from the fratboy lot from House of Blues, except they were too old and too casually dressed. Anyway, there was this one really tall guy -- looked like a lawyer, actually -- who was sort of the ringleader rug-cutter of the lot. During the band's stirring rendition of Mony Mony à la Billy Idol, he did the most awkward, amazing "ride the pony" pantomime I've ever seen. I think he time-warped those moves from his Lone Ranger theater afternoons in the late 60s. I'm just guessing. Anyway, it was even more of a squeal-inducing delight than a midget doorman. Trust me on this one. He looked like a thirty-something man channeling a 4 year old with a stick horse - priceless.
I do wish I had photographs, though.
Anyway, during one song, the dancefloor was pretty clear, and the lady in black with the fan came out and danced with the husband of her friend. Sis told me she'd chatted with the lady in black briefly a few minutes earlier, and she'd said she hasn't been out in years, that her neighbors dragged her out. Anyway, she was having a good time and it was fun to watch her kick up her heels.
The great thing at the end of it all, actually, was realizing how much more pleasant it was to have a Dos Eqis at the biker place at half the price than to be in those other places which were sterile of smoke and of anything resembling cheerful conversation.
We came back to Sis' house still rather early, and sat on the porch talking for at least an hour. I went to bed and was awakened several times in the night by the 15-pound jelly eunuch of a cat who would go on head-butting me. I think he decided there was finally someone in the house lower on the foodchain than he was, as he's been trumped by dogs and kids and such. This morning, the real offender was the wiener dog, and she clearly thought I had no business being asleep. Bitch.
Anyway, so that was that-- my birthday come early. Thanks, Sis. I had a blast.
Sorry I dropped a stitch there - meant to post for Sunday, but was tied up with extended family bidness and finishing a scarf I've been crocheting for a couple weeks. I'm excited, because that's the first real usable crochet project I've finished in several years. Huzzah!
Anyhoo, about Saturday night:
I told little sister what I wanted from her for my birthday was for us to go to the Dallas Observer "Best of Dallas" awards Saturday at House of Blues. This was my first time in HOB, and I must say it's a marvelous venue. I'll look forward to seeing a band there. However, it was well evil to consider waiting in the interminable line to get a free drink, so I went to the paying bar where $10 (I know! Evil was everywhere) fetched a couple bottles of Stella Artois. I joined my sister in line for the buffet, and the food was great.
We ate and drank our beers and decided we were too cool for the room - much of the crowd seemed like a cookie-press gridwork of sorority/frat-lings, and rather unoriginal, at that. So we moseyed on over to Cafe Rembrandt, where they had Stella Artois on draught - even better. The space next door was where the venerated Starck Club was originally, a favorite haunt of mine 20+ years ago. Super cool.
Now the space is home to an 18 & up club owned by Dennis Rodman, and they have a dwarf doorman of foreign extraction. We sat side by side on the patio in front, marveling at the parade of 18-ish year old hoochie mamas streaming up to the place. Across the entry drive, always at least four and sometimes six police officers sat watching, waiting for trouble.
A person I know through work happened by and sat talking with us for a wee bit, and he said late at night, they toss scrappers out of that club bloodied and itching for more of a bust-up, apparently. Quite a step down from the oozing-cool urbanity of Starck Club. Ah, but nothing ever lasts, does it?
Anyway, we left downtown and headed back to her house where I was to spend the night. We decided to stop at a biker bar where sis used to crack the whip on the hellions as a barmaid. At least 3 M.C. clubs hang out at this joint, but it was a pretty low-key evening. Actually, one dividend of a slow night was that we only stank of smoke, rather than actually crossing over to reeking territory afterward.
We walked in and a giant doorman greeted Sis and she introduced him to me. She introduced me to a few other people and she chatted a bit. I noticed a woman with blonde hair being kind of rowdy with a pack of girlfriends at the bar, even though she didn't seem the barfly-type. She was holding a fold-out fan, and I thought this was so unusual that I instantly liked her. There was a band playing 80s hits, and we went to a table tucked discreetly back from the center of the room and did some people-watching.
Blocked from our view completely was an area populated entirely by the celebrants of a birthday gathering, but we got a good gander of them when they sashayed out onto the dancefloor. This whole group was very white, middle-class, too-recently-severely-groomed to have been bikers. The core group of four guys seemed to have been airlifted from the fratboy lot from House of Blues, except they were too old and too casually dressed. Anyway, there was this one really tall guy -- looked like a lawyer, actually -- who was sort of the ringleader rug-cutter of the lot. During the band's stirring rendition of Mony Mony à la Billy Idol, he did the most awkward, amazing "ride the pony" pantomime I've ever seen. I think he time-warped those moves from his Lone Ranger theater afternoons in the late 60s. I'm just guessing. Anyway, it was even more of a squeal-inducing delight than a midget doorman. Trust me on this one. He looked like a thirty-something man channeling a 4 year old with a stick horse - priceless.
I do wish I had photographs, though.
Anyway, during one song, the dancefloor was pretty clear, and the lady in black with the fan came out and danced with the husband of her friend. Sis told me she'd chatted with the lady in black briefly a few minutes earlier, and she'd said she hasn't been out in years, that her neighbors dragged her out. Anyway, she was having a good time and it was fun to watch her kick up her heels.
The great thing at the end of it all, actually, was realizing how much more pleasant it was to have a Dos Eqis at the biker place at half the price than to be in those other places which were sterile of smoke and of anything resembling cheerful conversation.
We came back to Sis' house still rather early, and sat on the porch talking for at least an hour. I went to bed and was awakened several times in the night by the 15-pound jelly eunuch of a cat who would go on head-butting me. I think he decided there was finally someone in the house lower on the foodchain than he was, as he's been trumped by dogs and kids and such. This morning, the real offender was the wiener dog, and she clearly thought I had no business being asleep. Bitch.
Anyway, so that was that-- my birthday come early. Thanks, Sis. I had a blast.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
The English government is about to ban smoking while driving. Can you imagine? Obscene! Anyway, in honor of this idiocy, I present:
Brilliant parody from Firesign Theatre - Revenge of the Non-Smokers
Smoke-easy bartender - Here ya go, but keep it on the Q.T.
Thug customer - Hey! Who you calling a cutie, you king-sized fag? I'll crush your butt!
Brilliant parody from Firesign Theatre - Revenge of the Non-Smokers
Smoke-easy bartender - Here ya go, but keep it on the Q.T.
Thug customer - Hey! Who you calling a cutie, you king-sized fag? I'll crush your butt!
Friday, September 28, 2007
HOW TO GET THROWN UNDER THE BUS IN A MILLION WORDS OR LESS:
A person has been bawling like a wean-sick calf about a minor amenity in his apartment that does not function up to his high standards. Mind you, 5 other dwellers have a similar amenity and one has an identical item and
they all are satisfied with the performance. This is real prince-and-the-pea-type shit. You'd think this ruined his life. Yeah, it may have been less-than-ideal if you're enough of a milquetoast to notice an unsatisfying level of froth from your Mr. Bubble product, but a regular guy wouldn't see this as a malfunctioning feature. (A real man would never even use this feature - so says my ruggedly heterosexual Marine brother-in-law)
Anyway, he complained in June about this feature, and I lined up technicians for repair just to assuage his tender sensibilities. One tech threw it over to another and the complainant said he wanted to coordinate the repair. I let him, and the he - the complainant - dropped the ball - the tech didn't show, and he didn't bother to tell anyone in the office until 6 weeks later. July 31 (hello - remember that some stressful shit compromised my immune system and I got pneumonia? THIS is part of the reason why) I arranged once and for all for a new tech to come finish it. I told the receptionist on the phone "I AUTHORIZE you to do whatever is necessary to complete this repair, regardless of price."
Little did I know I'd be in hospital the day repair was taking place. They went to the office for authorization ANYWAY after I'd greenlighted it on the phone in advance, and the price of repair was daunting to my temp replacement so she threw it up the chain of command in the company where it landed with the owner who kiboshed the repair. Owner then proceeded to do nothing to find an alternative solution to the problem, leaving the person stewing and getting all the more angry at me for the ensuing 3 weeks until I returned to work.
Flash forward, and the person now blames me for every time this was not completed (even though I was out of the office/in the hospital/sick for an entire month of the ordeal) and went directly to the owner of the company (who conveniently failed to mention that he personally ash-canned the last repair attempt when I had it set up 8 weeks ago). Owner called me up and proceeded to bawl me out about not fulfilling my responsibilities saying that I need to learn to deal with people and not just hand problems over to other people to solve. Throwing me under the bus, in other words and acting like some big hero to the gasbag. When owner called me Friday, he knew I was in the office with new prospects and was not free to respond frankly. Actually, I should have, but I can't stand dragging people into a ridiculous stink like that - it's a toxin that ruins the day of anyone it touches.
What can you do? Thank goodness I have options and an exit strategy planned, but for now, it's a steaming plate of nastiness I'd rather not be served. Watch this space. Oh honey, I could tell you some things. I've seen shit that'll turn you white.
A person has been bawling like a wean-sick calf about a minor amenity in his apartment that does not function up to his high standards. Mind you, 5 other dwellers have a similar amenity and one has an identical item and
they all are satisfied with the performance. This is real prince-and-the-pea-type shit. You'd think this ruined his life. Yeah, it may have been less-than-ideal if you're enough of a milquetoast to notice an unsatisfying level of froth from your Mr. Bubble product, but a regular guy wouldn't see this as a malfunctioning feature. (A real man would never even use this feature - so says my ruggedly heterosexual Marine brother-in-law)Anyway, he complained in June about this feature, and I lined up technicians for repair just to assuage his tender sensibilities. One tech threw it over to another and the complainant said he wanted to coordinate the repair. I let him, and the he - the complainant - dropped the ball - the tech didn't show, and he didn't bother to tell anyone in the office until 6 weeks later. July 31 (hello - remember that some stressful shit compromised my immune system and I got pneumonia? THIS is part of the reason why) I arranged once and for all for a new tech to come finish it. I told the receptionist on the phone "I AUTHORIZE you to do whatever is necessary to complete this repair, regardless of price."
Little did I know I'd be in hospital the day repair was taking place. They went to the office for authorization ANYWAY after I'd greenlighted it on the phone in advance, and the price of repair was daunting to my temp replacement so she threw it up the chain of command in the company where it landed with the owner who kiboshed the repair. Owner then proceeded to do nothing to find an alternative solution to the problem, leaving the person stewing and getting all the more angry at me for the ensuing 3 weeks until I returned to work.
Flash forward, and the person now blames me for every time this was not completed (even though I was out of the office/in the hospital/sick for an entire month of the ordeal) and went directly to the owner of the company (who conveniently failed to mention that he personally ash-canned the last repair attempt when I had it set up 8 weeks ago). Owner called me up and proceeded to bawl me out about not fulfilling my responsibilities saying that I need to learn to deal with people and not just hand problems over to other people to solve. Throwing me under the bus, in other words and acting like some big hero to the gasbag. When owner called me Friday, he knew I was in the office with new prospects and was not free to respond frankly. Actually, I should have, but I can't stand dragging people into a ridiculous stink like that - it's a toxin that ruins the day of anyone it touches.
What can you do? Thank goodness I have options and an exit strategy planned, but for now, it's a steaming plate of nastiness I'd rather not be served. Watch this space. Oh honey, I could tell you some things. I've seen shit that'll turn you white.
Party season has arrived.
WOOHOO!
Thursday night I went to a soiree at this marvelous mid-century modern house. I thought I'd be a smarty britches and make my little silk evening bag so much lighter by leaving the Treo in my car, and I got inside, fell in love and opened my purse to find - alas! -- no camera phone. Wadn't no way in hayull I was gonna schlep all the way back down those stairs to street level in heels for a camera to sneak photos. Serves me right. Anyway, it was positively grand, and I met a lot of wonderful people. I wish I could show you an interior shot, but this will suffice.
Favorite thing anyone said to me all night: "I'm gay, but you have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen."
I'll take that compliment.
Saturday night is an awards thingie I'm attending with my sister, and I'm sure I'll have some fabulous stories from that event, too. Now if only it would get cooler - cold weather finery is so much more fun to wear than sweaty summer stuff. I'd be ok if Dallas were perpetually blanketed in snow.
Have a great Friday. It's going to be a fabulous weekend!
You've GOT to love the crap out of Little Britain, especially Vicky Pollard. Then with Dawn French showing up as Vicky's mum? Double-trouble!
no but yeah but
no but yeah but
no but yeah but
but oh my god this whole other thing happened wot i completely forgot to tell you about cos you know caz?
well she got sacked from the bakery counter at the Somerfields in Redland cos she kept licking all the sugar off the donuts and then putting them back on the shelf...
...but anyway she had such a cob on that she went down the Fleece and Firkin with the Redman sisters and drank 15 bottles of hooch and then went back there in the afternoon and shat in a tub of Utterly Butterly.
don't go giving me Thai evils!
no but yeah but
no but yeah but
no but yeah but
but oh my god this whole other thing happened wot i completely forgot to tell you about cos you know caz?
well she got sacked from the bakery counter at the Somerfields in Redland cos she kept licking all the sugar off the donuts and then putting them back on the shelf...
...but anyway she had such a cob on that she went down the Fleece and Firkin with the Redman sisters and drank 15 bottles of hooch and then went back there in the afternoon and shat in a tub of Utterly Butterly.
don't go giving me Thai evils!
I met a couple foodies for 1/2 price Bento box night at Sushi Yama at 8989 Forest Lane in Dallas, Wednesday.
I arrived early and backed my car into a shady spot and read for about 45 minutes waiting for 6pm to arrive. Next door to Sushi Yama is an English pub, and on the other side is an Irish pub. I've wonder if there's ever been a brawl in the parking lot. Prolly not. Prolly no one Irish OR English goes either place.
I sat and focused on my (very good) book, generally, but people were pulling up and occasionally distracting me. They got out of their vehicles and walked to the door of one or the other bars with such resolution, I found myself wondering if any of those folks had applied themselves at any point in the day with so much purpose as that with which they hauled their carcasses into the bar. I sort of associate social drinking with leisure and ease, rather than a desperate need to slake a thirst, so it seemed strange to see people walking toward the bar with the same vigor they'd have if they were walking into a court case they knew they were going to win.
One woman climbed out of her truck and tucked her ugly handbag into her armpit, adjusted her tube top and sashayed her ass right on in, trailing the naff of desperation that is the earmark of the apocalyptic white trash divorcee. Her hair looked amazing.
In 1983.
Jeans didn't fit right. She wasn't any of that, not even the bag of chips. I just wondered what she expected to accomplish, poor thing. I wanted to rassel her to the ground and give her a mini makeover right there, but she had about a foot on me and obviously needed a drink, so she might not have been a willing subject.
The bento box was amazing. It's an array of sushi/tempura/teriyaki-type stuff, and is normally about $22, but Wednesdays it's $11. Coolne
ss. I haven't been there in about 4 or 5 years, so it was nice to go back. In a bento box, you get small portions of a lot of different things. True, some of the things you'll get are stuff you'd never order, but also, sometimes you discover you like something you never would have tried without prompting.
The restaurant was full and most tables were all getting the bento boxes. This is the kind of place I imagine is very much like a restaurant in Japan. It's small, the tables are relatively small and people are sorta crammed together and you all just kind of work around it.
Spilling back into the night a little after 8pm, toob top mama was having an animated verbal exchange with another bar-goer involving lots of non-Sunday-school language. I guess she got her drink on, alright.
I'll bet if I go back to Sushi Yama in 20 years for a Bento box and wait in the parking lot between 5 & 6, I'll see that same woman in that same get-up.
I arrived early and backed my car into a shady spot and read for about 45 minutes waiting for 6pm to arrive. Next door to Sushi Yama is an English pub, and on the other side is an Irish pub. I've wonder if there's ever been a brawl in the parking lot. Prolly not. Prolly no one Irish OR English goes either place.
I sat and focused on my (very good) book, generally, but people were pulling up and occasionally distracting me. They got out of their vehicles and walked to the door of one or the other bars with such resolution, I found myself wondering if any of those folks had applied themselves at any point in the day with so much purpose as that with which they hauled their carcasses into the bar. I sort of associate social drinking with leisure and ease, rather than a desperate need to slake a thirst, so it seemed strange to see people walking toward the bar with the same vigor they'd have if they were walking into a court case they knew they were going to win.
One woman climbed out of her truck and tucked her ugly handbag into her armpit, adjusted her tube top and sashayed her ass right on in, trailing the naff of desperation that is the earmark of the apocalyptic white trash divorcee. Her hair looked amazing.
In 1983.
Jeans didn't fit right. She wasn't any of that, not even the bag of chips. I just wondered what she expected to accomplish, poor thing. I wanted to rassel her to the ground and give her a mini makeover right there, but she had about a foot on me and obviously needed a drink, so she might not have been a willing subject.
The bento box was amazing. It's an array of sushi/tempura/teriyaki-type stuff, and is normally about $22, but Wednesdays it's $11. Coolne
ss. I haven't been there in about 4 or 5 years, so it was nice to go back. In a bento box, you get small portions of a lot of different things. True, some of the things you'll get are stuff you'd never order, but also, sometimes you discover you like something you never would have tried without prompting.The restaurant was full and most tables were all getting the bento boxes. This is the kind of place I imagine is very much like a restaurant in Japan. It's small, the tables are relatively small and people are sorta crammed together and you all just kind of work around it.
Spilling back into the night a little after 8pm, toob top mama was having an animated verbal exchange with another bar-goer involving lots of non-Sunday-school language. I guess she got her drink on, alright.
I'll bet if I go back to Sushi Yama in 20 years for a Bento box and wait in the parking lot between 5 & 6, I'll see that same woman in that same get-up.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
WHAT THE SAM HILL is up with me getting sales/soliciting calls on my cell phone the past couple weeks? I thought I was on a national do not call registry? Does it expire? Did the law change?
These assholes are calling and killing my minutes on my phone. OMG - I'm going to start bawling them out. I've always used restraint when people call my home phone, but I'm not on a ticking meter with my effing home phone. I'm furious.
Anyone know the answer to this?
These assholes are calling and killing my minutes on my phone. OMG - I'm going to start bawling them out. I've always used restraint when people call my home phone, but I'm not on a ticking meter with my effing home phone. I'm furious.
Anyone know the answer to this?
I think my dad was wishing Bollinger would axe the foreign dignitary if he ever went swimming and got hog nasty in his ears.
I know a guy who worked in a diving pig show while he was in college in Austin, probably about 25 years ago, or so. Now he runs a restaurant in London, so it just goes to show that even if you must endure a crap job occasionally, you never know where you'll end up. Not that swimming with pigs is a crap job. Unless you get hog nasty in your ears.
Where have all the diving pig shows gone?
Long time passing.
You've got to wonder about anyone who doesn't eat pork. Seriously.
I found a really cool website on which to squander precious time daydreaming about one fine day when I'll have pet chickens. It's fabulous, and called mypetchicken.com and they have lots of info on the noble chicken as pet, etc. I was looking at the bantam Belgian breeds and the Buff Orpingtons which I love just for having a name like Buff Orpington, and of course there's the temptation of having the Foghorn Leghorn variety.
Anyway, I was daydreaming, blissed out on the prospect of chicken ownership when I had this wretched realization: um, chickens like to get up in the morning.
I don't.
You have to coop them up at night so varmints won't gobble them up, and then in the morning, they expect to be let out of the coop to scratch around in the yard. Did you know chickens eat fleas? Ees true. They also eat grubworms and beetles and lots of other garden pests. Maybe I could find someone to share a chicken with? Someone who'd let me have the chicken for a half hour every day. Could I rent a pet chicken? Must investigate...
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
I preface this post by saying from the git-go that what I write here is admittedly not well-organized. Free-flowing may be the best description and convoluted-in-form the worst, but I have a few things to say about the whole Ahmadinejihad visit to the USA.
First and foremost, our press in the USA has given that man every reason to believe that he would be greeted with open arms in a bastion of American liberalism. When Columbia University invited him to speak, he must have been over-the-moon at the prospect of carte-blanche to proselytize on American soil. Of COURSE he would have loved the opportunity to gloat over Ground Zero, but more importantly, he was met with a very real demonstration of how hostile and irrational Americans are since he was refused that opportunity, and therefore may enjoy a rally in his domestic popularity. After all, weren't there Iranians killed on 9-11? Anyhoo...
My hat is off to Columbia University president Lee Bollinger, who may have committed the ultimate in social/professional suicide: for those ivory-tower types eat their own. Actually, I hope his full-frontal assault on old doo-dad is a harbinger of a changing of the tide, but we shall see. I can only imagine how Graydon Carter's blood boiled at the accusatory nature of Bollinger's questions, and that GC put Vanity Fair staffers to work digging for dirt immediately so that he could cram a hatchet piece on Bollinger in the soonest possible issue of that America-hating rag. Again, congratulations to Bollinger on his cojones latón.
Confronted about the execution of homosexuals in Iran, Ahmadinejihad said:
Nice. Um, well, maybe they don't have homosexuals because they execute them at every possible opportunity. One of the more outrageous (if that's possible) stories of the recent torment and execution of homosexuals in Iran described two 16 year old boys caught in the act who were incarcerated and tortured for 14 months prior to execution. Generously, Iranian officials give homosexuals the choice of how they will be executed: being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch.
Here's what I wonder: in a culture which treats women as chattel and teaches men to disdain women as filthy creatures, how is it surprising that some young men would be repulsed by the idea of sexual congress with a female? Let's be honest - Persia is one of the more ancient civilizations on earth, and anyone who is halfway honest will admit that homosexuality - for better or for worse - has been around at least as long as prostitution. To think that such a garden of enlightenment would have functioned outside that trend truly tests the bounds of credulity.
We may not be perfect, but at least in Western society, a person who is not a traditional heterosexual can live an open life with the comfort of knowing every morning they wake up that they won't be executed by the government that day for their private predilections. Even then, life is not a free ride in the West for gay folk, but at least they have a life with which to fail or succeed the same as everyone else. Despite the "law" of any state, what happens between consenting adults here is not the government's business. Full-stop.
Ironically, in the West, we don't execute some people who should be put down like rabid dogs. We have this thing about fair trials and second and third-chances and whatnot. Come to that, we also don't gather in arenas to watch the execution of human beings for sport, which is so irretrievably barbaric as to addle the wits.
Part of what makes the USA so effing rocking is that as long as you are not infringing someone else's rights, you may behave in private as pleases you most. If you want to participate in some goony, hopped-up weirdness that involves dancing with snakes and blowing smoke on apples, well-- hot-diggity!-- you've come to the right place. The same Constitution that guarantees my liberties does so for all other folks, and although we may disagree on a lot of things, we mostly get through our lives pursuing our individual dreams and we generally respect one another. We have a system in which we can rely on clean drinking water, and our children are not forced to enjoy the dividends of cholera-laced water supplies and the constant threat of malaria and dysentery, evil hot-sauces notwithstanding. The truth of it is that people like the Iranian president and his ilk (and worse) would only find ultimate satisfaction in demeaning civilization throughout the rest of the world, and reducing the common luxuries of the clean, healthy environment we enjoy to the level of third-world standards. He'd be delighted for us all to subsist in mud huts with flies crawling on our eyeballs and daily threatened by the world-wide plague of tuberculosis.
Anyway, about the gayness thing - I think it's really ironic that Ahmadinejihad and his cohorts rail so publicly against homosexuality, because they sure seem like a pack of cocksuckers to me. (Not to impugn cocksuckers in general, you understand. I'm just saying...)
I will wrap this up with Bollinger's words - I can't say this any better:
First and foremost, our press in the USA has given that man every reason to believe that he would be greeted with open arms in a bastion of American liberalism. When Columbia University invited him to speak, he must have been over-the-moon at the prospect of carte-blanche to proselytize on American soil. Of COURSE he would have loved the opportunity to gloat over Ground Zero, but more importantly, he was met with a very real demonstration of how hostile and irrational Americans are since he was refused that opportunity, and therefore may enjoy a rally in his domestic popularity. After all, weren't there Iranians killed on 9-11? Anyhoo...
My hat is off to Columbia University president Lee Bollinger, who may have committed the ultimate in social/professional suicide: for those ivory-tower types eat their own. Actually, I hope his full-frontal assault on old doo-dad is a harbinger of a changing of the tide, but we shall see. I can only imagine how Graydon Carter's blood boiled at the accusatory nature of Bollinger's questions, and that GC put Vanity Fair staffers to work digging for dirt immediately so that he could cram a hatchet piece on Bollinger in the soonest possible issue of that America-hating rag. Again, congratulations to Bollinger on his cojones latón.
Confronted about the execution of homosexuals in Iran, Ahmadinejihad said:
“In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country.”
With the audience laughing derisively, he continued: “In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have this.” msnbc.com
Nice. Um, well, maybe they don't have homosexuals because they execute them at every possible opportunity. One of the more outrageous (if that's possible) stories of the recent torment and execution of homosexuals in Iran described two 16 year old boys caught in the act who were incarcerated and tortured for 14 months prior to execution. Generously, Iranian officials give homosexuals the choice of how they will be executed: being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch.
Here's what I wonder: in a culture which treats women as chattel and teaches men to disdain women as filthy creatures, how is it surprising that some young men would be repulsed by the idea of sexual congress with a female? Let's be honest - Persia is one of the more ancient civilizations on earth, and anyone who is halfway honest will admit that homosexuality - for better or for worse - has been around at least as long as prostitution. To think that such a garden of enlightenment would have functioned outside that trend truly tests the bounds of credulity.
We may not be perfect, but at least in Western society, a person who is not a traditional heterosexual can live an open life with the comfort of knowing every morning they wake up that they won't be executed by the government that day for their private predilections. Even then, life is not a free ride in the West for gay folk, but at least they have a life with which to fail or succeed the same as everyone else. Despite the "law" of any state, what happens between consenting adults here is not the government's business. Full-stop.
Ironically, in the West, we don't execute some people who should be put down like rabid dogs. We have this thing about fair trials and second and third-chances and whatnot. Come to that, we also don't gather in arenas to watch the execution of human beings for sport, which is so irretrievably barbaric as to addle the wits.
Part of what makes the USA so effing rocking is that as long as you are not infringing someone else's rights, you may behave in private as pleases you most. If you want to participate in some goony, hopped-up weirdness that involves dancing with snakes and blowing smoke on apples, well-- hot-diggity!-- you've come to the right place. The same Constitution that guarantees my liberties does so for all other folks, and although we may disagree on a lot of things, we mostly get through our lives pursuing our individual dreams and we generally respect one another. We have a system in which we can rely on clean drinking water, and our children are not forced to enjoy the dividends of cholera-laced water supplies and the constant threat of malaria and dysentery, evil hot-sauces notwithstanding. The truth of it is that people like the Iranian president and his ilk (and worse) would only find ultimate satisfaction in demeaning civilization throughout the rest of the world, and reducing the common luxuries of the clean, healthy environment we enjoy to the level of third-world standards. He'd be delighted for us all to subsist in mud huts with flies crawling on our eyeballs and daily threatened by the world-wide plague of tuberculosis.
Anyway, about the gayness thing - I think it's really ironic that Ahmadinejihad and his cohorts rail so publicly against homosexuality, because they sure seem like a pack of cocksuckers to me. (Not to impugn cocksuckers in general, you understand. I'm just saying...)
I will wrap this up with Bollinger's words - I can't say this any better:
"I am only a professor who is also a university president, and today I feel the weight of all the civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad. "I only wish I could do better."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)