see below...
for some odd reason i can't seem to add any text or links to the post below...long winded explanation.
if you feel so inclined, feel free to pick up this set for me for whatever holiday you hold dear.
I am starting my wish list early...
The post coital attitudes of reclining grasshoppers
It seems as if it has been a while since my typewriter graced this lovely space. Oh well my life has been hectic—here is the update.
The move is almost complete and as of the last couple of nights I am once again sleeping in my own bed. I can’t begin to tell you how nice it is after six weeks on the couch. I also get to cook again. Cooking for me has always served the purpose of being therapeutic. So I feel like I can relax again and spend less money on food that isn’t as good for me. I get to eat so much more spinach now.
The apartment situation is unique in that it is only temporary and we will have to move again. Right now we have two one bedrooms to split between the three of us until our ‘real’ apartment is finished. When its finished, no one knows. The building says a month—our internal guestimates range from two months to 3.5 months. Regardless I am not homeless and have an address; both are developments that changed my outlook considerably.
Since the turmoil of being homeless is over my focus must now be redoubled at the escuela. While staying on top of things is one thing preparing for the future is entirely something else—something I really must be doing. I have decided that as interesting as constitutional law is to me it is also mind boggling and has become a bi-weekly physically exhausting event. This professor of mine happens to be insane and can pack more words into an hour and fifteen minutes than most humans can in days. I assume that once I too master the skill of not breathing.
One other thing…my life is eternally funny.
an interesting editorial...
The hollow world of George Bush
The power of positive thinking is the president's shield from reality
Sidney BlumenthalThursday September 23, 2004The Guardian
The news is grim, but the president is "optimistic". The intelligence is sobering, but he tosses aside "pessimistic predictions". His opponent says he has "no credibility", but the president replies that it is his rival who is "twisting in the wind". The UN secretary general speaks of the "rule of law", but he talks before a mute general assembly of "a new definition of security". Between the rhetoric and the reality lies the campaign.
In Iraq, US commanders have plans for this week and the next, but there is "no overarching strategy", I was told by a reliable source who has just returned after assessing the facts on the ground for US intelligence services. The New York Times reports that an offensive is in the works to capture the insurgent stronghold of Falluja - after the election. In the meantime, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists linked to al-Qaida operate from there at will, as they have for more than a year. The president speaks of new Iraqi security forces, but not even half the US personnel have been assigned to the headquarters of the Multinational Security Transition Command.
George Bush's vision of the liberation of Iraq has melted before harsh facts. But reality cannot be allowed to obscure the image. The liberation is "succeeding", he insists, and only pessimists cannot see it.
In July, the CIA delivered to the president a new national intelligence estimate that detailed three gloomy scenarios for Iraq's future, ranging up to civil war. Perhaps it was his reading of the estimate that prompted Bush to remark in August that the war on terrorism could not be won, a judgment he swiftly reversed. And at the UN, Bush held a press conference where he rebuffed the latest intelligence.
Bush explained that, for him, intelligence is not to inform decision-making, but to be used or rejected to advance an ideological and political agenda. His dismissal is an affirmation of the politicisation and corruption of intelligence that rationalised the war.
In his stump speech, which he repeats word for word across the country, Bush explains that he invaded Iraq because of "the lesson of September the 11th". WMD goes unmentioned; the only reason Bush offers is Saddam Hussein as an agent of terrorism. "He was a sworn enemy of the United States of America; he had ties to terrorist networks. Do you remember Abu Nidal? He's the guy that killed Leon Klinghoffer. Leon Klinghoffer was murdered because of his religion. Abu Nidal was in Baghdad, as was his organisation."
The period of Leon Klinghoffer's murder in 1985 on the liner Achille Lauro (by Abu Abbas, in fact) coincided with the US courtship of Saddam, marked by the celebrated visits of then Middle East envoy Donald Rumsfeld. The US collaborated in intelligence exchanges and materially supported Saddam in his war with Iran, authorising the sale of biological agents for Saddam's laboratories, a diversification of his WMD capability.
The reason was not born of idealism, but necessity: the threat of an expansive Iran-controlled Shia fundamentalism to the entire Gulf.
The policy of courting Saddam continued until he invaded Kuwait. But realpolitik prevailed when US forces held back from capturing Baghdad for larger, geostrategic reasons. The first Bush grasped that in wars to come, the US would need ad hoc coalitions to share the military burden and financial cost. Taking Baghdad would have violated the UN resolution that gave legitimacy to the first Gulf war, as well as creating a nightmare of "Lebanonisation", as secretary of state James Baker called it. Realism prevailed; Saddam's power was subdued and drastically reduced. It was the greatest accomplishment of the first President Bush.
When he honoured the UN resolution, the credibility of the US in the region was enormously enhanced, enabling serious movement on the Middle East peace process. Now this President Bush has undone the foundation of his father's work, which was built upon by President Clinton.
Bush's campaign depends on the containment of any contrary perception of reality. He must evade, deny and suppress it. His true opponent is not his Democratic foe - called unpatriotic and the candidate of al-Qaida by the vice-president - but events. Bush's latest vision is his shield against them. He invokes the power of positive thinking, as taught by Emile Coue, guru of autosuggestion in the giddy 1920s, who urged mental improvement through constant repetition: "Every day in every way I am getting better and better."
It was during this era of illusion that TS Eliot wrote The Hollow Men: Between the idea/ And the reality/ Between the motion/ And the act/ Falls the Shadow."
· Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com
Sud America and the Soundtrack of Tomorrow
It is the lit candle in the center of
The room
It is the brisk, fall infused breeze wafting
Through the window
It is the present, confounded by the future playing to the sound
Of tomorrow
It is the noise of the indecipherable that is the lullaby of
A troubled mind
It is the smiles and sounds of the endeared that quench the
Thirsty heart
It is in the thousands of pages and conversations of the inconsequential
That heal the bruised ego
It is the fear of an early death that life is lead
With reckless abandon
It is the temperament of the unknowable that causes mystery
To reign supreme
It is in everything that nothing
Is found
And
It is here, amongst the madness of the rote and mundane
It is here, amongst the beauty of everyday life
It is hear, amongst the arid rain, that frolicking existence
Runs away every day only
To be assured that tomorrow
Will arrive
The nightmare just never seems to end….
As of right now I still have not been able to move into my new apartment. It seems as if I won’t be able to for at least a month longer. This presents obvious problems and the last two days have been nothing but headache. Hopefully on Monday there will be some concrete news to share and maybe a temporary apartment to live in.
Yesterday had to have been one of the worst ever from start to finish.
I must be getting old as my body now takes forever to recover. After such an incredibly strenuous day—the evening became very long. I am now paying for it and all I want to do is sleep.
Open mouth chewing agitates me…
I figured I’d take a moment.
So I have. The travel bug has got me, yet I don’t know where or when to go. Time might tell.
The last couple of evenings have been quite enjoyable and as usual, have terminated at Grace.
I am a big fan of the passive voice, let the critics be damned.
Anyone want a gmail account?
Today is strange and US Postal presented by Berry-Floor is in leading the Vuelta de Espana (sans Armstrong)
Why do they always have to end so predictably?
Just saw Garden State (do you italicize movies?) and although I thoroughly enjoyed it (thank you sponsor) I was disappointed in the ending. I’d like to say that it was cliché which is probably apropos, but why is it that the film industry always has the same happy endings. Rare is the film where shit just doesn’t work out. Life unfortunately doesn’t work like it does in the movies…sometimes I wish it did, other times I’m glad that it doesn’t. Further, I think that I have officially done away with the paragraph now, at least in this post. Mundane. I walked home and did a lot of thinking. Not that this film really made me think all that much (lay blame where you wish) but I find it funny that I always do some of my best thinking on the walk back. It used to be the drive. It should be pointed out here that the thoughts are substantially better when you actually see a film of some sort of redeeming quality. For example, avoid films that have axe wielding paratroopers jumping out of helicopters to slay dragons. Also avoid transporters working out of Nice. So what was I thinking this evening on the walk back? I strung together a diatribe of sentences in my mind that most accurately described my being and existence. Sometimes philosophy can be fatalistic. I should have ended on that last sentence…it really is more my style. I thought I’d take a moment to discuss the noise of the trash truck outside but then in a most peculiar manner its usual cacophony dissipated into the dense humid cool of this post-pluvial night. Talk about unjustified ego.
Can you take me back to where I came from, can you take me back?
(for some reason i couldn't delete the space here)
Just wasting time…I’m having a real hard time focusing on anything for any real extended period of time.
You don’t have no muthafucking seat on your bicycle.
Kinda funny how the entire month of September is becoming one massive holiday—gots two days off next week and hopefully a move too. And cash money.
I have a new project I might work on this weekend; “The State of the R”
I’ll post a transcript of the speech here once I deliver it to the screaming mad masses.
Ciao!
Reuters
Bush: OB-GYNs Kept from 'Practicing Their Love'
Tue Sep 7, 9:27 AM ET
POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) offered an unexpected reason on Monday for cracking down on frivolous medical lawsuits: "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."
The Republican president, long known for verbal and grammatical lapses, included the anecdote about obstetrician gynecologists in his stump speech attacking Democratic presidential rival Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards (news - web sites), a former trial lawyer.
At a rally of cheering supporters in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, Bush made his usual pitch for limiting "frivolous lawsuits" that he said drive up the cost of health care and run doctors out of business.
But then he added, "We've got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."
Unfazed, Bush went on to deride his rivals as "pro-trial lawyer," and concluded, "I think you've got to make a choice. My opponent made his choice, and he put him on the ticket. I made my choice. I'm for medical liability reform now."
If I was hiding from the feds, I’d be in Rio
That is of course if I had any reason to hide from the feds.
Things are really starting to get interesting around here. Hopefully within the next two weeks I should be livening in a new apartment. This, in conjunction with finally getting some cash money, should really help my cheerful disposition.
I’ve noticed a couple of things lately. The first is that I have been doing a lot of complaining. I have a feeling that this doesn’t make me the most endearing person to the populous. Secondly, I have been thinking of many a big plan and taking no action. This second thing is not anything new…I tend to live with my head in the clouds.
The republicans are gone.
I’m listening to French lessons as I go to sleep and working on a way to become an Italian citizen.
Now that television is back in my life I have noticed that it lacks the panache and artistry of the written word. This shouldn’t be news to anyone but it really is a waste of time. I am wasting too much time.
I could really use 20 million dollars.
I just had a great overly egotistical idea: I am going to start a million Ryan march; we’ll work out the details later.
Oh, and another thing; I am so freaking sick of fitness professional John Basedow and his commercials.
I’ll be back, the muse comes to me at moments of my most lazy as of late.
this is interesting...
China, US close to deal on nuclear technology trade: report
Wed Sep 1, 8:41 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - China and the United States have nearly settled a dispute over nuclear technology, a move that would allow US companies to sell nuclear reactors to China.
The deal could mean billions of dollars for US companies that have lobbied hard to get Washington and Beijing to reach agreement, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
"This is happening," a US State Department official told the Journal on condition of anonymity. He said sanctions, export controls and most other barriers to sales have been removed.
A US-Chinese agreement to allow cooperation on nuclear energy signed in 1985 was put on hold after Washington imposed sanctions on Beijing for using force to quell the Tiananmen Square democracy demonstrations in 1989.
Trade in nuclear technology was further stalled by additional export controls and concerns about previous Chinese proliferation of nuclear technology to Pakistan and Iran.
Since last year, China has tried to meet US concerns by agreeing to inspections to prove it isn't transferring US technology to third parties and joining a US-backed group of nations that seeks to control nuclear exports to prevent weapons proliferation, the Journal said.
The deal eliminates the advantage by French, German and Canadian companies in the Chinese nuclear market, the Journal said. The business daily said Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong told visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney in April that China will build 24 to 30 nuclear-power plants by 2020, at a cost of 1.5 billion dollars each.
A spokesman for Westinghouse, one of the firms that pressured the administration of President George W. Bush to reach a deal, said that firm plans to bid on two projects which already have been approved by Chinese officials, the daily said.
