Protect the Wolves

Just received this petition from care2 protesting the Bush administration's decision to withdraw protection for the wolves in the Rocky Mountains region, including Yellowstone National Park. It takes one minute to sign and you don't have to live in the US. Nice to hear the national parks are being turned into hunting grounds, eh? If someone happens to find Cheney there, there's just no telling what kind of tragedy might befall him.

Back to You, Peter

Thanks to Dave S for recommending this piece by Noam Chomsky, a critique of the myopic views embraced by Washington and the West’s political culture in general. Chomsky – yet again – patiently and meticulously analyzes the blatant hypocrisies embedded in US Mideast dealings and Israeli policy as well, which makes total sense since in the Arab world there is little experiential differentiation between the two dogmas (or should that be dogs, as in pitbulls?). Much of his discussion revolves around use of the word “terrorism” to support various military actions against Palestinians (mostly) and others as well, but basically Chomsky taps this history as the most blatant example of how Americans understand what “the world” thinks using the assumption that they are, in fact, the world. As the saying goes, people get the leaders they deserve; except perhaps in W’s case of broad lack of credibility, US leadership has stuck to the program because it’s a framework that’s been accepted by a majority of the population. There’s lots of good historical stuff in this piece, standard Chomsky fare and his conclusion of course is always the same: the West will never understand why these so-called terrorists remain hard at work until it understands what its own actions look like from the other side of the fence.

In his own summary of why “public opinion” is most always used to support US policy, my friend Dave succinctly points out, “They dictate the debate.” That this is true came out clearly in the following exchange from the Clinton-Obama slugfest that just took place in Ohio, when Tim Russert brought up Obama’s relationship to Louis Farrakan:

Russert: What do you do to assure Jewish voters…. that you are consistent regarding Israel and not in any way saying that Farrakan epitomizes greatness?

Obama: I have some of the strongest support from the Jewish community… and the reason is I’ve been a stalwart friend of Israel’s… I think their security is sacrosanct….

Although Obama did go on to discuss his desire to bridge gaps between Black and Jewish communities, and acknowledged the role of many progressive Jews in the civil rights struggle, both he and Russert chose to discuss the question of Jewish electoral support around his support for Israel, and in such a way that not questioning the Israeli occupation and whatever other military actions that racist state engages in is a given. Why is Israeli security more “sacrosanct” than anyone else’s? Why is it assumed that the Jewish vote itself represents blanket support of Israel? This is particularly ironic since, as i mentioned, Obama lauded the involvement of Jews in the civil rights movement and many of those individuals or their political descendants are vocal anti-zionists. Yet Russert set it up this way, dictating that assumption as fact, and Obama then vitrified the framework by first and foremost stating that the Jewish community supports him because he’s a devoted friend of Israel’s. Can you imagine if he had been asked about Darfur and said that Sudan’s security is sacrosanct? Never happen, even though we talk about the African-American community as though there’s a potent intercontinental relationship, while Jews are never discussed as the Israeli-American community, even though - given this framework - they may as well be.

Personally, i believe the issue that lies at the heart of Chomsky’s over-arching theme - the US/West’s “world view” compared to the WORLD’s world view – comes out in a reference made early on about the assassination of a Hezbollah commander Imad Moghaniyeh:

‘State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said: "one way or the other he [Moghaniyeh] was brought to justice."’

The italics are mine. This phrase sends me into a quiet rage every time i see it. Not to be too literal here, but where exactly is this justice that Moghaniyah was brought to? The answer actually makes the question rhetorical, because we know that in fact, whenever we're told this there’s been no court, no evidence, rarely even any “leaked” proof of criminality. Judges? Juries? Those would be the guys with the cruise missiles, or planted explosives, or Apache helicopters. In the immortal words of the late great Peter Tosh:

Everyone is talking about crime
Tell me, who are the criminals?

The ideology that claims “we get to kill, overthrow or otherwise destroy whomever we want with total immunity” has been so long embraced by the US that the very notion of American justice is understood to be the gravest contradiction in terms by most of the world. In every one of Chomsky’s historical references, we see this again and again as the foundational basis for foreign policy (and not only foreign). It’s concomitant ideology, that the US has long been the leader of the free world, i.e. the part that operates under a rule of just law and legal governance, is completely undermined by it. Killing people and then claiming you did so because they are militants, subversives, etc. is absolutely criminal. We’re told that because the West is now fighting a different kind of war, different rules must apply. Yet when the new rules mean unequivocal subversion of legality, wherein justice lies, the war itself loses all credibility as any kind of just cause. Immunity = unlimited greed = unbridled lies.

People who live far removed from the locations where these atrocities are played out don’t know what it’s like to conduct their lives under constant arbitrary bombardment. Nor can they imagine seeing their neighbors plowed under by monster bulldozers. And because they don’t really get that there are large numbers of other people living under such conditions – or who have lived under them - they don’t come close to understanding the rage and awareness of injustice that these other populations carry around, often quite stoically. When factional leaders in the Middle East and elsewhere talk about justice, you can be sure everyone listening to them understands who deserves to be held accountable, and for what.

Back to you, Peter.... I don’t want no peace, I want equal rights and justice

Africa: Cyclones, Energy and Elections

Madagascar has long been at the top of my list of places to experience, so it's been quite upsetting to read the news about what's going on there now. Cyclone Ivan hit earlier this week and has left the country in shambles. AP is reporting 145,000 are now homeless, and UN OCHA is saying that 30% (18.000 hectares) of the country's rice fields have been totally flooded out. Evidently Cyclone Hondo is now about 1500 km off the coast and a month ago Cyclone Fame hit, leaving about 5000 people homeless. This is not good, i mean how much crazy climate phenomenon can one country take?? In addition to the tragedy of human suffering, Madagascar's many environmental programs have got to be taking a real beating now and this is also tragic, because the island is an amazing place in terms of biodiversity: essentially, the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean. While most people think of it as the land of lemurs, the Giant Boababs are truly amazing trees, which also have been losing habitat though much work has been done to protect them. So, just wanted to say something about this, as it ties into the many dreadful impacts of the climate crisis, as well as issues of food scarcity and importance of UN relief missions.

Segueing directly into my next heads-up item, the balancing act between food production and production of crops for bio-fuels. FAO and various European universities have come up with an analytical model for countries to use in determining the food scarcity impacts that could ensue relative to increasing bio-fuel production. Obviously, this question is important to consider before we all start buying up seats on Virgin Airlines. This article discusses the model, and i'm just going to stick in this one quote to give you an idea of what some are projecting:

... the increase in crop prices resulting from expanded biofuel production is also accompanied by a net decrease in availability and access to food. "Food-calorie consumption decreases the most in sub-Saharan Africa, where calorie availability is projected to fall by more than eight percent if biofuels expand drastically," said the IFPRI paper, The World Food Situation: New Driving Forces and Required Actions, by Joachim von Braun.

George Monbiot has been covering this issue from day one, here's his latest, in which he again points out the food-fuel connection (in his typically stark terms). i don't know enough about this issue to claim to have the right answer or best alternative solution... but i'm trying to understand what's being (im)balanced and how the rapid growth of consumerism, especially in populous Asian countries, is driving the demand for industrial fuel up and hence, putting nutritional food supplies at greater risk. It is a complex. vicious circle.

Lastly, this has been a month of important elections globally, but the season continues into March, with voting in Zimbabwe scheduled for 29.03. Monster Mugabe just had a birthday party, which was crashed by 120o demonstrators. Here's a great photo from the demo [note: the only way i could get into into the blog was by saving and pasting, it comes courtesy of allafrica.com] and you can read more about what's going on with these elections and the country in general at SW Radio Africa. Bush's recent statements about Mugabe during his and Laura's little Africa jaunt could just as easily been said about himself:

"In Zimbabwe, a discredited dictator presides over food shortages, staggering inflation, and harsh repression," he said. "The decent and talented people of that country deserve much better."

i know i'm hardly alone is saying it will be good to see both of them gone before this year is over, and then see them again in the defendant's box at The Hague. (ok, not holding my breath on that, but i'm allowed to wish, am i not?)

Don't Cry for Us, Ralphienido

My yankee friends all gotta check out this video message to Ralph Nader, if you haven't seen it yet.

That said, i do agree with both Ralph and Cynthia McKinney that the more progressive candidates there are out there, the better. Obama does not exactly fall in that category now, and as far as i can tell he's not getting any closer to it. It's a sad statement that Anonymous and whomever else worked on this humorous little film are still hanging their heads in shame over what happened in 2000; as far as i'm concerned, that W Bush ascended to the office was largely the result of Gore not standing up forcefully for a complete recount. The point about voting strategically is valid, sure enough. But americans are too willing to settle for a two-person debate, while at the same time being far too diverse in nature to be fully - evenly remotely adequately - represented by one. So i wish Ralph well in getting out a different message, and respect him for even putting energy into electoral politics again when people who should support him speaking up in whatever context he so chooses are instead encouraging him to lie down and jump onto a bandwagon which may or may not be able to fuel itself if Pennsylvania Ave is indeed where it's headed.

Splat

The other night, i attended an opening of an art installation by UK photographer Graeme Miller. This show, BEHELD, consists of 10 fish eye images projected onto convex glass plates. When a plate is lifted from its pedestal, a released button triggers a soundscape unique to the environment where the photo was taken. Interesting concept, very artiste-like. To see a couple of the images, scroll down here. All the photos were taken at places where airplane stowaways have fallen from the sky, with the camera lens looking up at the void through which they fell. You can read a short interview with Miller here, in which he discusses the origins of the concept. As i said, there are only 10 images, so if you’re in Obuda and have a free half hour, check them out.

Being more of a morbid existentialist than an art critic, what i found compelling about the work was not so much the medium, artistic quality, etc. – things which i’ve no qualified perspective on – but the inspiration for it. A Swiss housewife is washing the dinner dishes, looks out the window and sees a body moving at gravitational momentum land in her flowerbed. Splat! When she runs outside and looks up, there is only the two-dimensional plane creeping across the sky, whereas the body now at her feet made rather indiscrete three-dimensional use of the same space. i’m not sure this is the kind of mental referencing the photographer wanted to lead us to, but there it is.

The show did get me thinking about stowaways, questioning why someone would risk hiding on the exterior of an aircraft that was going to be flying at 10,000 meters. Ok, it’s a rare occurrence because obviously most people wouldn’t take this risk. According to a US Dept of Transportation study done in 1996, the NY Times documents only 10 such cases between 1947-93. In keeping with the non-emotive, objective mandates of science, this particular study used the plane stowaway phenomenon to look at the physiology of survival. Evidently the body enters a hibernation state from which it can later recover full functionality. This obviously punches a huge hole into my idea of eradicating Dick Cheney by tying him to a wing of the space shuttle, but so be it. While it appears that hiding in the wheel carriage of a plane is a common choice, some stowaways are a bit less self-annihilistic and opt for interiors.

The majority of stowaways, now and for centuries past, have famously been found on ships. The International Convention relating to Stowaways was signed in 1957 as part of international maritime law, and stories like this one about Chinese immigrants who incredibly spent 32 days (!) in a shipping container abound if you search the topic. Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun has forever fixed in my own imagination how horrific this experience must be. That so many people continue to do it by choice kind of boggles the mind, but maybe, like the 3 guys in Kanafani’s story, they just believe what their carrier tells them and assume nothing could be worse than the lives they’re leaving behind.

The newest topic in stowaway concerns are extremophiles. These are bacteria that can survive extremely hot or cold conditions, such as methane-ingesting chemeosynthetic bacteria found at the sea bottom and inside volcanic matter. NASA has been cataloguing these species in order to later be able to distinguish earth-inhabiting bacteria from any they might collect unknowingly from Mars – celestial stowaways, you might say. In this case, what enters the imagination is more of a vomitous kind of splat, the micro alien thing that drove Sigourney Weaver to head-shaving extremes. I remember reading about how after Mount St. Helens exploded in 1980, they found these extremophiles in all the waters surrounding the volcano, then related them taxonomically to archeabacteria drudged up from the bottom of the ocean around deep sea hot springs (obviously connected to volcanic activity) and, if my memory serves me correctly, so-named because they are thought to be the oldest living creatures on earth - geologic stowaways or evolutionary castaways?

The ultimate irony would be if space experiments on these bacteria evolved into human testing down the road, in the form of injecting a person’s body with extremophile DNA, stuffing them in an airplane wheel casing and seeing what happens on a flight from Moscow to Rio. What goes around comes around? i’ll leave that one to Mr. Asimov to work out, and photographers of the future who can figure out a way to turn it all into art.

حقوق الانسان بيد الامريكية

لاصدقاءي العربي

بعض الحقيق من الجزيرة

derechos humanos... ¿pero es obvio, no?

Apologies Matter

The recent apology by Australian PM Kevin Rudd to the stolen generation came and went on the international news scene, but the fact remains: apologies matter. As a white girl who grew up on the other side of the Pacific, i've long been horrified by the limitless accounts of atrocities committed against the native peoples on Turtle Island by the US government. So it was great to come across this news, about the honoring of Chief Leschi of the Nisqually tribe up in Washington State on the 150 year anniversary of his execution. The Chief was exonerated in 2004 for the death of a US Army Colonel, who was killed in an ambush during the manifest destiny wars in the Pacific Northwest. Once again, apologies matter.

An interesting - or shall i say synchronistic - aspect of this history is that Leschi's execution was the first case of capital punishment in what was at that time the Washington Territory. With trials of Guantanamo prisoners set to begin soon, the commemoration of Chief Leschi provides yet another opportunity to reflect on the death penalty, the murder of those tried in kangaroo courts in order to substantiate the political rhetoric being spewed about at the time. It’s hard to see how pre-determined verdicts for the Guantanamo six signify any kind of change in the way the US government approaches the trials of people from groups which have been considered threats to the empire over the course of its history. That the government is asking for the death penalty for Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, et al. hardly surprises, yet the thought of these sentences actually being carried out is something i personally find repulsive, moreso because the system under which they’re being tried is so corrupt.

A final thought on the apology theme: Bill Clinton’s infamous “bridge to the 21^st century” shamefully excluded any substantive attempts on his part towards rectifying the injustices against native peoples. At the very least, he should have pardoned Leonard Peltier, who was extradited from Canada under false pretenses and whose incredibly long incarceration - 30 years and counting - is widely acknowledged to be an act of political scapegoating. This is an apology – and a pardon – long overdue!! I truly hope that when future generations commemorate Leonard, it will be on the anniversary of his release, rather than the date of any other event in his life.

Grasping Kosovo "Independence"

Just came across this article at spiked-online, which characterises the current situation in Kosovo as it appears "on the ground" right now. Here's an excerpt:

Under the terms of this model, the UN protectorate will be replaced by the ‘European Union Rule of Law Mission’ (EULEX), a 2,000-strong nation-building mission, incorporating police and judicial officials from the European Union to manage Kosovo’s legal system. Like the UN viceroys that preceded him, Pieter Feith, the head of EULEX, will have sweeping undemocratic powers to dismiss public officials and veto parliamentary legislation.

The question this raises in my mind is whether Russia's strong stance against Kosovo's "breakaway" is actually a stance against the EU machine taking over from the UN, rather than a domino theory fear that other autonomous movements are going to use this as a springboard for their own declarations of independence. One supposes that time will tell, depending on what Serbia does given the deal it's recently been offered by the EU, balanced against the anti-independence mania sweeping its streets.

Oscar Tribute

Something fun in anticipation of the post-strike extravaganza

Spooky Country

William Gibson aficionados will immediately note my ripping off the title of his latest book but it’s such a deliciously malleable title, who can resist? (It’s also a great read about an awesome spy-world scam, and the dynamic between imposed limitations and having none at all.) Bueno. Since relocating to Europe 6 months ago, i’ve gotten dragged first into facebook, then MySpace, then iWiW – a Hungarian network – most recently, a friend invited me to join LinkedIn, which i did but have yet to use. Now that i’m a tiny bit more up to speed on this realm of cyberspace, commentaries about it begin to catch my attention. There’s a lot of spookiness to this world, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t even know the half of it.

This rant captures my own rudimentary thoughts about facebook, which i’d compare to MySpace as the difference between those who follow the Britney spectacle and those who have a life. i’ve actually deleted some former Palestinian students from my facebook ‘friends’ because they post dozens of inane messages a day; the interesting thing there is that they don’t know i’ve deleted them, courtesy of site design. Next comes MySpace, where one major topic of discussion are on-site stalkers; after reading more blog entries on this than i’m going to admit to reading out of what i’ll claim was anthropological interest, i realized we’re dealing with an inflamed version of the same facebook animal - aside from the MySpace music world, which is great!!. Soooo we’ve got a bunch of group perversion and pettiness dynamics, some outright weird but nothing exceptionally spooky EXCEPT that at the point where these sites become a person’s social “event” the degree of dumbing down can get kinda creepy. People i used to communicate with in meaningful ways have run out of energy for that, using up their cybercalories biting and poking and passing around little quizzes to help me figure out whether yellow matches my personality. Am i the only one out there (in here?) who too often feels reduced to being just another name on a webpage broadcasting list?

Somewhere last week, (sorry, can’t backtrack it) i read that Rupert Murdoch owns MySpace. THAT’s a spooky revelation, especially when you start to hear about what’s getting censored. It didn’t really upset me when facebook was tracking people’s holiday gift purchases, but knowing that the Murdoch team, which probably (surely?) translates into FISA-related surveillance, is tracking MySpace discussion groups definitely disquiets. My own MySpace background looks like this, so even if i’m not using the site much, i'm sure they'll put me on the right watch list.

On the mega-spooky level, the EU has decided to vastly expand its own people tracking activities, with hundreds of thousands of video cameras and, by 2015, fingerprints and other personal data being required for international travelers. Airports are essentially going to become tracking stations, if i understand this right; your data goes in at the departure end and if they still let you on the plane, the country you’re flying into can peg you as problematic, so the boys in blue will be there to greet you upon arrival. So much for the newfound freedom of Schengen border expansion… is that what it’s going to take to make Europeans stop flying everywhere?

Perhaps the one thing that will save us from all this control is a total economic collapse, which theoretically could deprive the state from funds to pay for all this. i’m not holding my breath, the slayers of evil-doers are amazingly resourceful, and it would somehow be fitting if the US/EU-NATO countries depended on Afghan opium crops to cover the costs of harassing their own citizens. i’m not generally a paranoid individual, or at least unhealthily paranoid, but this stuff really does point me in that direction. Maybe i need to start reading more Doonesbury, or loose myself in facebook programmettes to stop taking it all so seriously.

Finkelstein + Addendum re Gaza

For those interested in all things anti-colonial, here's an recent interview with Norman Finkelstein. My favorite comment from the exchange:

It [Israel] is more than a rogue state. It is a lunatic state.

Indeed. A great thing about Dr. Finkelstein is that he's an expert in conciseness.... It's good to know that such a critical expert does see a just way out of the morass and i look forward to reading his next book.

Addendum: If you read the piece of a couple days ago about Gaza and thought my animal analogy was inappropriate, well, consider this description from an article in current MERIP by Darryl Li:

Israel now treats the territory less like an internment camp and more like an animal pen: a space of near total confinement whose wardens are concerned primarily with keeping those inside alive and tame, with some degree of mild concern as to the opinions of neighbors and other outsiders.

You can read the full article here. i'm not going to turn my blog into another Palestine-focused rant center, but i can't ignore what's going on there, either. And neither should you.

Added a poll

I decided to add a poll to the blog, to see where my international readership falls on this question of expat voting. With all the international attention the Obama-Killary slug fest is getting, lots of people have been asking me who i'll vote for, but i wasn't planning to vote, hence the poll. If you have a strong opinion about this one way or the other, please use the comments link at the end of this blog entry. Köszönöm!

Earth to UN

The UN sends yet another high-level official to Gaza, who says he is "shocked" by the living conditions there. Has this guy not been reading the news and his own institution's reports for the past umpteen years? Hello! Earth to UN! That Gaza is a hellhole is hardly a revelation. Even more perplexing is the envoy's apparent belief that all will be better if the flow of goods increases back to the level it was "before".... well, before when? Before the Egyptians resealed the Rafah crossing after last month's mass breaching of the wall? Before Israel's latest sealing of the Gaza Strip? Before 2001? This is akin to saying the carnivores in a zoo will have normal lives again once the local butcher returns from vacation...

The Israelis are of course always happy to promulgate the idea that they mean well if their security is respected. "Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said the situation could 'very quickly return to where it was' if rocket attacks ceased." That's just great. If my memory doesn't fail me, the status quo doesn't offer living conditions any sane person on earth would freely choose. When i was there in 2001, i couldn't believe the filth i had to wade through just to cross the narrow streets in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp (which has since experienced its share of demolitions). This statement, intended to give the impression a few rockets landing in Israel are responsible for the conditions in Gaza today, is so disingenous i can't imagine it being said with a straight face.

People say this conflict will never end, the Palestinians and Israelis are never going to accept, let alone like each other. i disagree: a resolution is possible. However, the endless stream of lies coming from all quarters - including Abbas and his american-armed thugs - has got to stop. If these were piled together, we could jump from that heap directly onto Mt. Kilimanjaro - we're talking decades of outright lies and distortions. Yes, there are intensely complicated issues that need to be resolved, but as we've seen since 1948, without even a modest effort to be honest, there's no chance for trust, and no ramp off the roadmap to hell.

Requiem for the Bunny

Waking up with music blaring inside your skull can lead to bizarre tendencies in the early morning. Case in point: today Cafe Gitano's Que Poca Cosa Es la Vida was running through my cerebral cortex, a song which has absolutely nothing to do with technology whatsoever, yet the book i pulled off the shelf was Digital Islam, and the news story that caught my eye - and imagination - was this one from the BBC. It's about nanowires in clothing - nanofibres - that can be activated by body movement to power various types of electronic devices. We're talking about the end of the Energizer Bunny here, my friends. Who needs AA and AAA batteries when your underwear can power that iPod? Lest you think i'm joking, here's a direct quote from Professor ZL Wang at Georgia Tech:

"If we can optimise the design we can get up to 80 milliwatts per square
metre of fabric - that could potentially power an iPod."

Hard to say what the side effects of electronifying our individual physical momentums will be, though if your email traffic is anything like mine, an end to viagra would be more than welcome. Instead of a cute little toy bunny to guide our purchasing behavior, we'll probably start seeing chimps waving their arms around to activate blackberries, maglites and who knows what else. Yes, a new microdawn approaches. Que poca cosa a poder la vida....

Bedlam Defeats Gimli

Hey, you may have forgotten this, but it's elephant seal mating season now! Check out this battle for supremacy between two males, courtesy of the folks at Los Farallones National Wildlife Refuge in northern California. You can read more about elephant seals here and here. i've seen them at Año Nuevo during the birthing season, when the males are all sleeping and the moms are pushing out their young. Amazing animals. Around February, the guys wake up and what's on their minds? SEX! i remember actually that in January, we caught one of them having a wet dream... these are quite large animals... it was hardly subtle. So yes, they wake up, horny as hell, and start staking their position in the 'who gets laid' status bar. It's a bloody battle, but that's evolution for ya.

Es: sello de elefante Fr: èlèphante de mer Hu: fóka elefánt? عربي. فيل البحر??

In other animal kingdom news, for those who grew up in North America and/or on Loony Tunes, remember the Tasmanian devil fad, back in the early 70s or so? A cartoon of a little hyena-like creature spinning around and leaving a trail of fire in his wake? (that's my memory, anyway) Well, it turns out that these animals have been suffering in recent years from condition actually known as devil facial tumor, (is there anything wikipedia doesn't have info about?) An article in Le Monde today says this is because of high exposure to flame retardant chemicals. My god, what kind of kharma's at work there?? Of course, the story immediately focuses on whether humans should be worried about exposure to these same compounds - persistent organic pollutants, or POPs - which i guess means no more sniffing my fire extinguisher when the herbe stash is gone. But these animals are the last living member of their genus and are close to being listed as endangered. i guess it goes to show that what man can't hunt, he's still able to kill off by other means.

Terror and Loyalty

A few years ago, the building which served as Hungary’s version of Lubyanka was officially opened as a museum: the Terror Haza (House of Terror). That it’s situated on lovely Andrassy Avenue in the heart of Pest somehow makes even more repugnant what went on inside. Like if Guantanamo were underneath Lincoln Center or the Eiffel Tower, a place where, years later, visitors would wonder how such things could be going on right under everyone’s noses. Yet it wasn’t a case of people not knowing what was happening there; blacked-out basement windows were insufficient cover for the torturous madness within. It was also, in the main, something of an officers’ club. The vibe inside is mostly grey, a very dull grey, except in the club rooms which are all red, as in Red Star, or Gestapo-esque cabaret veneer.

The Terror House offers these succinctly captivating (no pun intended) themes: Nazi occupation, Soviet occupation, deportation, internment, gulag, surveillance. In the dungeon one enters the cells and torture chambers, a few with victims’ photos lining the walls, some of whom went from torturer to tortured as the needle of power swung awry in the years following WWII and Hungarians struggled to get their communism right. (Szabo Magda called it “the circus” and the more i learn the history, the more on the mark she seems to be.) A few years ago, i met a British diplomat who’d attended the opening and said that by the end of it, many photos had walked. The history of totalitarianism remains fresh here, and there may well be former interrogators ambling down the streets with silver-tipped canes whose families would prefer the past stay buried in the realm of historical immunity... or perhaps that of irreparable pain. Tényleg,egy cirkusz volt.

In what initially struck me as a nice example of Orwellian doublespeak, the head of the fascist Arrow Cross had called 60 Andrassy the House of Loyalty. This is a side of the terror cube that i don’t normally think about, although the connection now seems obvious. It brought to mind Tali Fahima’s account of how, during her interrogation, Israeli Shabak tried to recruit her as a spy using the loyalty card... Do you want to be responsible for your people dying? Then there’s all the rhetoric spewed out since 9/11/2001 about being with the terrorists if you’re not against them. We’ve got candidate for change Obama announcing that he’d bomb Pakistan if there was actionable intelligence: give us your loyalty or we’ll give you death. The same model, recycled over and over again. Anyone who rejects torture on the grounds that it doesn’t produce useful information anyway is not necessarily rejecting the paradigm (which in my humble opinion, is no way to run the world in this or any other century).

Is loyalty an essential component to terror? No, i wouldn’t say that. Yet it does come into force in a number of nationalist struggles today, such as in Kosovo, Palestine, Pakistan, where we find psychological terror vis a vis national or religious loyalty used as a precursor to internal violence. This is the dangerous road down which many believe the US is now travelling, and brings me to the final thing i want to say about the Terror House and it’s current exhibit on the deportation of Hungarians from Czechoslovakia in 1947. Specifically, the use of terror against ethnic minorities as a way to cement nationalist fervor for whatever other insanities those in power want to actualize.

A Hungarian friend recently pointed me towards the continuing question of safety for the Hungarian community living in Slovakia. This stuff is like a vignette out of an early Woody Allen film in its preposterousness: putting up giant crosses to remind Hungarian-Slovaks which country they live in? A Christo vision run amok. Can anyone in their right mind actually believe that Hungary is mobilizing to threaten the sanctity of Slovakia’s borders, starting with the arming of its little ethnic enclaves in the south? More to the point, does an ethnically pure Slovakia offer the Slovaks some intrinsic benefit they can’t currently wrap their arms around? Of course not. Yet the terror of deportation is hardly a distant memory in European history. People here, i’m learning, take this kind of politics quite seriously, even though it comes from a minority. i’ve had otherwise reasonable Hungarians tell me they think Chinese-living here should be kicked out, and i won’t even get started on the things i’ve heard said about Roma, who aren’t treated well anywhere in Europe.

So, i left the House of Terror more viscerally convinced that internationalism is a dream hanging out there in the far distant future. Too much divisive baggage still being carried around, not enough people willing to look honestly at history’s replicating nature. However, i must add that with all the fervor being given to Naomi Wolff’s current stomp speech, the US seems far away still from the kind of fascism that swallowed up Europe in the 1930-40s. You wouldn’t find as many people at the Super Bowl as there were at Hitler’s super rallies. The zombie factor in America remains small, by comparison. A tinge of hope mixed with a bit of fear? Ok ok, i know the rap: we must remain ever vigilant.

Winter Colors

Lyrics from J'ai pas de Temps by Souad Massi.

Petitioning the Empire

Online petitioners extraordinaire avaaz.org are now circulating a letter to the 3 major US presidential candidates asking them to commit themselves to stopping climate change, protecting human rights and promoting peace. Sign it. Why not? Sure, the petition underscores the White House junta’s arrogance - no surprise there – and so betrays how far up the cynicism scale we’ve all climbed. But if you’re an american, it’s an act of solidarity with subjects who have no electoral voice. If you’re not an american, it’s an opportunity to tell members of the US Senate that people outside the borders are still willing to ask nicely if they have someone in power who’s willing to listen.

Nearly 20 years ago, i was in Jordan during the US election and we spent a night in Aqaba watching US election returns on Israeli TV. The detailed, all-night coverage was amazing. Which precincts in which states support the candidate who is most strongly committed to Israel? In that election it was Pappy Bush running against Dukakis: friend of the Saudis vs exonerator of Sacco & Vanzetti (a hard call for any Israeli, i’m sure). In November 2008, i expect many countries around the world will be mimicking Israeli and it may well be the night of highest internet traffic ever, globally. The US punditocracy keeps repeating that this is the most important election of our lifetimes and that may well be extendable to the most important election anywhere ever. After 8 years of this W Dick shit, what happens next in US government is going to be significant internationally however it goes.

Why am i doing this?

hello hola bonjour szia ahoj mar7aba ciao

this is my first entry and virtually purposeless. actually, it's a test to see how the blog looks with something actually written on it. well, if you want to know the real truth, it's a test to see if i remember how to form a coherent sentence and am really going to be comfortable sending my garbled consciousness out there into virtualville, where any jerk or government spy (is a distinction possible?) has the option of quoting me on something.

you can see right off the bat that i'm neither the brightest light nor the craftiest writer you'll come across here in the blogosphere, but maybe i'll get better and the wattage will go up as the experiment progresses. it's been a really long time since i've kept any kind of journal. storytelling has never been my forte, but i've rarely refrained from jumping in when it comes to commenting on other people's stories... it's said that the world now is becoming divided between those who are creating vis a vis the internet, and those who are merely voyeurs on the great cyber highway that's supposedly going to save humanity's soul. or something like that. (all cyber-humanist philosophy seems increasingly like just another marketing scheme, but who am i to judge?) the point here is that a lot of blogs are purely reactive and a lot are purely creative, and i suppose that this one is going to blend the two.

check out my friend Mike's virtualvisitinghours. he's waiting for surgery to have a brain tumor removed and writes candidly and comically about his prague hospital coffee quests, having his brain invaded by foreign objects and other such non-nihilistic themes. we love Mike and hope he gets this whole illness behind him soon!

if you have a website, send me the link and i'll list it.

ok, let's see how it looks.....
click on preview....
seems ok....
andiamo!