pitter patter

Signs of progress in Kenyan peace talks

2008-02-19T07:26:00.000-08:00

In a sign of progress between the two opposing faction's in Kenya's ongoing political turmoil, the opposition leader Hon. Raila Odinga, (link), has accepted my friend request, despite my previous and public friendship with President Mwai Kibaki, (link). The symbolic olive branch by Odinga paves the way for my possible arbitration in the ongoing Kenyan peace talks. I will continue to post as the situation develops.

Duylinh's rebuttal

2006-12-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

Duylinh's rebuttal
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

An estimation of the projected quality of her comeback.

The Natives

2006-12-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

The Natives
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

Indigenous Austin Woman:
If she does not prepare all the meal before the great migration, her family will starve.

Cranky letters to the editor

2006-11-29T14:55:00.000-08:00

I like going home to read the letters to the editor in our local South Texas paper. Usually they're about disrespectful youth, a corrupt county commissioner, Jesus, George Bush, or what winter Texans from Minnesota or Ontario think about "the Valley," as the border region of South Texas is known. Here's my favorite treatise on international politics from last week (name blocked out):

Editor:

OK, so the Democrats have won both houses of Congress. Now let's look at who is happy: the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the French, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and illegal immigrants.

Who needs to fear America now? Our real enemy - the unborn child in the womb.

Someone please explain to me how this has made the United States a better country?

XXX XXXX-

Harlingen

The Gray Lady is a tramp

2006-11-28T18:21:00.000-08:00

I got the New York Times re-started and it's infected my apartment again after a long remission. It blossoms and spreads uncontrollably if I try opening or otherwise tampering with it. In the way a cockroach or spider might just release its hundred of eggs if you mess with it, the paper shouldn't be touched. If opened, it releases several sections, each one looking as big as the paper in its whole appeared at first. Once opened, a section will never revert to its original size when refolded.
I've found that the subscription has a particularly vicious effect on apartments that have not been broken in yet. Eventually the photos and the general layout find themselves on the wall -- the wall papers complement the floor papers and the table papers and the bathroom papers and the ashtray papers.
Some of the paper though is regional enough in temperament that I read it for the novelty effect. And novelty effects make stereotypes funny. If I travel through the midwest I'd like to stop by the Corn Festival, and when I read strongly worded opinion pieces on the negative effects that refrigeration regulations have had on the tragically lost art of pork curing, I can see a sweater-vested wasp in Connecticut, passionately (but not too passionately) arguing that the decline in appreciation for the now under-appreciated hidden flavors in pork-wine interactions parallels a fall in institutions of society. Then I laugh 'cause I don't have salmonella.

Introduction to Modern Squirrel Society and Dynamics, 1688-1993

2006-11-19T06:27:00.000-08:00

Anthropological primer on sub-temporal dispersion of modern empowerment in squirrel-grackel interactions.

The Rebuttal

2006-11-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

The Rebuttal
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

Don't get mad Germans, this doesn't concern you.

2006 nails 'The Hammer' - Opinion

2006-11-17T17:15:00.000-08:00

2006 nails 'The Hammer' - Opinion

Democracy, left of the Texas dial - Opinion

2006-11-17T17:07:00.000-08:00

Wherein I endorse the glorious Clay Woolam for Agriculture Commissioner. He came up tragically short.

2006-10-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

7year olds-tased!-50,000 Volts!

This is hilarious. I give up on my short career writing GOP attack ads. Parody has become obsolete.

Don't write and racedrink-corny things happen

2006-10-26T06:12:00.001-07:00

The output of my bet with Williams.

Republican Attack Ads

2006-10-24T10:31:00.000-07:00

Kelley and I would like to provide the following public service to the country in the form of Republican attack ads. Anyone can use it, just credit us.

First radio spot.
"We all love the freedoms that we cherish. Our country, our troops, our Commander-in-Chief, and our God. We believe in preserving the pillars of our society. Others believe that what should be raised atop our flagpoles at our schools is the flag of the gay agenda. They hold this as their strongest dream, that day in January when our cub scouts will be ordered away, their faces pushed into the mud, as Nancy Pelosi and Michael Moore rip the Stars and Stripes down our poles with glimmers in their eyes and impeachment on their mind. The banner of the ACLU will go up first, clearing the way for rainbow banner."

My White Trash dinner

2006-10-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

My White Trash dinner
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

Sunday meal.

Opening our minds to the world - Opinion

2006-10-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

I'll crush you, Adam.

Vooshhh, vooosh

2006-09-07T07:04:00.000-07:00

Nothing sounds more evil than a coffeemaker.

New Orleans, pt. 2

2006-09-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

On the anniverary of the hurricane I met Hilary Duff, the idol of pre-teen girls everywhere. She was very sweet and her mother facilitated small talk between us. Recognizing her own mother, Kelley and joked that Mrs. Duff was trying to hook up her uninterested daughter and I ("why don't you go out with that nice boy from the volunteer place instead? He goes to college. And he has no tattoos and says "ma'am."')
Because that night was the anniversary, the only appropriate course of action was a levee party on Lake Ponchartrain. After the night wore on the now-toxic Ponchartrain looked apealing. We swam there and now have odd bumps on odd places. If we die anytime soon Kelley and I respectfully request that we be added as belated Katrina victims.
On the way back we visited my 97 year-old great-grandmother in Louisiana, who accussed herself of being senile for saying "generate" instead of "germinate" and for forgetting the word "cataract." She is very sweet and only became militant when ordering Kelley and I to eat gumbo, which turned out to be the best gumbo I've eaten.
It was hard to peel ourselves out of Louisina after six days, but, though Kelley and I froze ourselves at a Waffle House, we successfully made it back home before classes.

New Orleans

2006-09-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

Austin brieftly got boring after a round of heavy socializing and visiting with people whom I hadn't seen for over a year. When it did, I called Eric to get Kelley's number so I could have a drink with her, but after hearing him babble about New Orleans the goal became to drive to New Orleans. Kelley's generally ambitious about maintaining her spontaneity, so we took off that night at 2.45am, and at the peak of Louisiana's sauna-type weather the next day we checked into the volunteer camp in St. Bernard Parish, a gutted elementary school. The school had met its end in its original purpose after being submerged in eight feet of watger and after 95% of the population of St. Bernard had left, but it has since become a center for distributing food and clothes, and for housting Habitat for Humanity and Americorps volunteers, who still spend most of their time gutting houses.
An Americorps volunteer showed us to our cots, but soon Eric came and showed us his miniature kingdom, inherited from a previous volunteer. It was made with bed sheets hung on wires to make walls fastened together with clothes pins, two mattresses and several sleeping bags and books.
Eric introduced us to some interesting likeable people, including people named Turtle, Coyote, Cranberry Juice, and John Booth (after the man who shot Abraham Lincoln), a few of whom gave us tips on how to lure and trap alligators. We went to the end of the road that had been washed out by the hurricane and threw rotten turkey and stale bread at the alligators. They came up to the shore, and while they never made a decision that indicated much intelligence, their strength and the swarming mosquitos outlasted us and we left the bayou.
We spent the days handing out food, church dresses, diapers, and cleaning supplies to the residents of St. Bernard's Parish, and got to know volunteers from every region of the country, drifters, hippies, college kids, locals and other people with good will and free time. We also drove around the area and talked to the people who came through the camp, and while the individual stories of residents rebuilding and reestablishing themselves were inspiring, the totality of the city still reeks of death and obliviation. Most of the houses were still spray-painted on the front with the number of dead found inside, and piles of debris still clutter the fronts of the abandoned businesses and neighborhood sidewalks. The exceptions, like the French quarter, were generally the areas that were never badly damaged in the first place.
Nonetheless I noticed that people in Louisiana are extremely gregarious, as there seems to be not any social barrier that has to be crossed before getting into detailed conversations. It worked to my advantage when a chatty waiter/bartender at a Cajun restaurant hurled trivia questions between taking our orders and was excited enough when I knew that Babe Ruth and Elvis Presley died on the same day that he gave me a free shot tequila, tequila enough that it actually soothed my throat instead of burning a hole through it. At the gas store the next day I filled up Kelley's tank,
"I'd like 25 dolalrs on that car on pump 7 and are these pies any good? I see them around the counter here everywhere."
"Yes, they're very good."
"Oh these these are the best. Which one do you have? Oh, the lemon, that's a good one. You should also get the banana or chocolate, which are best chilled, the chocolate chilled with a scoop of ice cream on the side, or the apple pie, that's best warmed over with a scoop of ice cream. You're not from around here?"
"No, Texas."
"where?
"Austin-"
I was stationed tehre when I was in the military, near Austin, it's a great city, let's see...there's 3rd street, 4th street, 5th street..."
As I walked out a lady who seemed neither desperate nor crazy asked us for a few bucks for gas. (This request was made matter-of-factly and I noticed that I never really saw that when I was in Sweden. Only once did I break down and ask for money from strangers. First I had to get the butterflies out of my stomach and mentally prepare myself to ask for the rough equivalent of one dime (one kronor) and then scanned the audience for the right person. I finally settled on a man who happened to be a Korean businessman who spoke neither English nor Swedish, and I had to to point out in his coin purse which likeness of Karl XVI Gustaf i needed.).
So, the lady got her gas and my banana pie, at at room temperature at the gas pump, was delicious.

The Texas Legislature, as always...

2006-09-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

Texas Capitol
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

During their glory years:

"in 1971 it unanimously passed a motion honouring the Boston Strangler, which a playful member had sponsored to demonstrate that his colleagues passed bills without reading them."

Around the same time Texas chicken tycoon Bo Pilgrim walked around the floor of the House waving two thousand dollar checks to any member who voted for legislation favorable to Pilgrim. I believe one or two members took the checks. Up until the early 90s margarita machines could be found in the halls of the Capital, but the most extreme forms of public drunken debauchery were stopped when one of the House members took to the podium aggressively pounding the gavel, obviously trashed. But as recently as a year ago free alcohol came along easily. The only scare I had as an intern there came when I went to one member's office one night during debates at a Spurs-Suns playoff game party and reached for a beer out of the ice chest. A grave-looking man and lady asked if I had ID. I was 20 and mumbled something about getting a beer for my older brother but as I stood there awkwardly they laughed and high-fived each other and said just so long I wasn't 12, I was ok. I then showed my brother and Duylinh to the chamber, where members from Dallas were pointedly interrogating the members from San Antonio on whether they had seen the Mavericks win that night. Sadly that noble body of democracy won't meet again till January.

Those Ole Summer Days

2006-08-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a tough day on the farm, though I could hardly say it was a typical one. See where I come from folks are honest, but you can't say that about all the folks that I've been happening to meet over the last couple days. This Saturday particularly rankles me. I'd been picking the blackberries over at Grampa's farm. We didn't want any of 'em to spoil-well that was Grampa's excuse, he's always been a bashful one about taking breaks from the chores, but we all knew he was hankering for a Saturday break from the chores, and boy wouldn't anybody be looking for Gradma's blackberry pies. My goolashes were still damp from the day before so I just wrapped some potato sacks around my boots and off we went. You can be sure as Lou Gehrig showing up that those dogs weren't gonna miss it either. Well we rambled through the patches, I caught Grandpa sneaking some here and there, but by and by those buckets sure got filled up good with the juices oozing out and berries all mussing up my clean parched shirt, careful as I was not to mess my hands all over 'em.
Well we were all delighted as heck that we'd have some pies for the city visitor, one of them all the way from Dallas, that it took a couple hours for me to realize that there wudn't any hounds brushing up against my legs. 'Specially Blue, he loves to help. Well I swear it wasn't one more minute after I started missing Blue that I heard some barking out on the outskirts near the creek. Grampa's been a crotchety fellow always and just said it's probably them finding a coon or whatnot, but I snuck over there and finally curiosity got the best of Grampa so we trekked on over there and found the huddle of dogs and they were sure awful careful with whatever it was they were looking over. They parted a way for us and what did we see but a little black puppy, a bit confused but calm as a cucumbur. Now this wasn't just any puppy: right as soon as I spied that yellow ribbon around his neck I knew just who's it was. Old Deacon Wrevright had just passed on the other day, and shame as that was, in the hussle of things after his death someone let that puppy of his out to wander around. We knew it was his 'cause old Wrevright never let that pup out without wearing a "Support Our Troops" ribbon around his neck. Well, we bundled it up and thought that, you know, this is the best time to go in. "We've got enough berries for Grandma's pies and this pup probably could use some food. " Walking back was a breeze 'cause of our excitement from a trifecta of factors: all our overflowing berries, the new pup, and last of all but certainly not least, our Dallas visitor. Duylinh was the name.
We washed up the puppy real good 'cause we knew just what to do with it: little Billy Holliday had just broken his leg and couldn't play baseball this summer. Instead, he needed a playmate and this puppy would do the trick.
About an hour later Grandma had the pies in the oven, so I sure rushed out to pump the water from the wells , finish the cornbread and set the table for the company. Finally this black car pulls up and out come this strange woman, whose eyes we sure couldn't see through her sunglasses. She didn't say so much except to introduce herself as Duylinh Nguyen, and briefly explained that she had wrecked her car and quit her job at Vonage so she needed something else to do. Well, everyone's got their affairs and I sure don't judge so we got all excited and served up the plates. She didn't eat a thing and only drank this funny "EVIAN water" that she'd take out of this queer handbag. Didn't seem right but we knew she wouldn't hold up to the temptation of the pie as Grandma came out of the kitchen with them, glowing with excitement and pride. Well, she didn't touch that at either. Instead with her bottle water she took out something she called Sourz Starbust and explained that that was the only sweet thing she ate. She wouldn't share. Well by this time Grandma was on the verge of tears but she's a graceful lady and held her composure admirably.
Wanting to change the topic, I went out to the barn to get this puppy. Now there's this old latch on the barn door, and gosh it hasn't been oiled in years. So I always struggle and struggle and by the time I get this barnyard door opened it's already made a heck of a lot of noise. Needless to say, the dogs have ample warning and stand in the entrance all frenzied up the time I can get it unlatched. So naturally I expected the pup to do the same. No pup. "Silly thing's probably playing in the hay" I assume. Not in the hay. I turn on the light but I don't see him. I clap on the wall but I don't hear him. This is queer so I figure Granpa's probably bundled him all up. I walk in and I say "anyone know where that pup is?" and Duylinh nonchalantly tells this story about getting here and she had a Louis Vatton bag (I think I spelled that right but it sure was a new word for me) and somehow this pup tore it all up. "So naturally," she says, "I had it taken to the pound."
"Well gosh we gotta get it back" I says and so I ring up the operator and tell her to get me the number of the pound, and by this time Billy Holliday's alread there 'cause he sure heard the news somehow. He's just sitting there waiting for the puppy whil Duylinh's just sitting there rolling here eyes and the pound man says "sorry sir, this puppy's done been euthanized. "
Well as Billy Holliday's bawling I see a slight smile appear on the corner of Duylinh's mouth. I just lose it and politely ask her to leave and I haven't seen her since.
Now I still think people are mostly good these days, but some people I've meet like Duylinh Nguyen sure shake that faith, but only till I look out and see the Grandmas and the Grandpas and the Billy Hollidays and Rev Wrevrights of the world. Then I see something called friendship and communities, and I see some values that people like Duylinh can never appreciate and I don't feel angry at her-I feel sorry for her.

The Biggest Scam in History

2006-08-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

The Biggest Scam in History
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

Oh and one other thing: that Commanding Heights documentary periodically cut to Milton Freidman or Von Hayek winning the Nobel Prize, as if that were some sort of honor. Well I actually attended the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm last December. It was random luck that I went: out of the few thousand international students at Uppsala University, four were randomly picked to go. I got one of the tickets, making it the first time I've ever won something in a drawing. So a Danish girl, Japanese girl, Australian guy and I all put on our Sunday best and headed out to the Stockholm concert hall. We got our seats in the bleachers just above where the King and royal family would be sitting. Approximately eight to ten prizes are handed out, right? Well I figured with my impeccable dressing and several of the papers I had just written, papers that had received a B+ or even better, that I had a chance to win at least one prize.
Not a goddamm thing. Not only did I not win a single thing, all of the people who did win were conveniently seated right next to the king, and did not look the least bit surprised when they did win. I'm not that big of a conspiracy nut so I'm not willing to go so far as to say that a mysterious board of people rigs the winners beforehand, but it sure seemed that way. I swear that everytime Karl XVI Gustaf gave one of the prizes out, he winked at the winner as if to say "let's just let this be our little secret." Sleaziest thing I've ever seen, yet Commanding Heights just parades it around as if that prize confers some legitimacy upon Freidman and Von Hayek.

A too tidy show

2006-08-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

Events here are happening according to expectation. I had been doing some dirt shovelling and complaining, but Ruth and I agreed that dirt shovelling is an inevitable eventuality when going to the Valley. Pepper the puppy has curbed his appetite for eating poop, and thus far has not caught parvo again. Across from the barbwired fence in our yard lie some rusty cars and a stacked pile of old bricks that have cylindrical holes through them, running lengthwise. A stray kitten got stuck in one of the bricks for about 24 hours. Only its head was poking out of one end, but he was successfully chiseled out. The rest of the animals are doing ok.
In my other time I've been wasting time on the internet and making fun of Swedish word combinations (the word for future is "front time" and the word for straw is "suck pipe").
I've also been watching the PBS documentary "Commanding Heights" on Surya's recommendation. I thought it was effective in mapping out the trends of the past thirty years, but I think it glorified the Chicago school "free market" approach of economics while only giving token mention to its side effects. The documentary periodically gave mention to, for instance, the rising gap between rich and poor in Pinochet's time or the collapse of several industrial towns when Margaret Thatcher closed the mines, but the setup started to become a predictable 1) layout of bureaucratically inefficent government, and 2) here come the wonder boys from Chicago to eliminate protections, liberalise the markets, save the country and free the people.
I think the original descriptions of those stagnating countries were accurate, but the documentary mostly ignored the fact that in many countries, the predictions of the opponents of Milton Friedman and Frederich (sp?) Von Hayek's theories did come true: with many protections eliminated, the economy would grow, but social welfare services would fall through, the rich would get richer but everyone else would stay in the same place, increasing the gap between the wealthy and everyone else in the country. During the United States' economic boom of the 1980s, only 70,000 people came out of poverty, compared to the 7 million who rose out of it in the boom of the 90s. The most annoying case of this neglect came when Milton Freidman predicts that free markets will lead to free societies. Then comes the story of Pinochet bombing and overthrowing the Marxist President of Chile, instituting free market policy at Freidman's suggestion, and then being booted out of power himself nearly twenty years later. The anecdote ends tidily with Friedman gravely intoning that indeed, because Chile had put in free markets and taken away protections, the country did indeed have a free society eventually. What he didn't mention that Pinochet's demise has been attributed in part to frustration on the part of the Chilean people, after government policies, put in at Freidman's urging, did lead to a decay of the pension system, increasing income disparites between the top income brackets and the rest of the population, and a general failure of Chile's economic growth to translate into socioeconomic improvement for most of the population.
In its defense, the documentary should not have focused equal time on the competing economic approaches, as the free market policies put in by Reagan, Thatcher, etc... were the dominant historical trend of the time period covered, and also because the documentary was actually the adaptation of the book Commanding Heights, which seems to have been promoting its own argument.

Rest in peace, freedom fries

2006-08-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

It seemed like just yesteday:

DEEP-FRIED:

By now many blog aficionadoes will be familiar with the death of "freedom fries", but it's still worth memorializing. As a symbolic, almost literary device, it's hard to imagine something that could capture the arc of Bush/DeLay-era Capitol Hill more perfectly than this stunt. Back when the House cafeterias changed their menus in March 2003, House Republicans enjoyed near-total power and diplayed an arrogance to match. But a few years later, look at what's happened: The war that the French opposed has turned out to be a disaster. The initial proponent of the menu switch, North Carolina Republican Walter Jones, has since said Iraq was invaded "with no justification," and displays faces of U.S. soldiers killed in action outside his office. Meanwhile, the official enabler of the name-change, Ohio Republican Bob Ney, has since been revealed as a compatriot of Jack Abramoff and as a result may face indictment and possibly worse. Though very different tales, both the Abramoff scandal and the execution of the Iraq war are travesties of unchecked power--and the sort of hubris that led anyone to believe "freedom fries" was a funny joke in the first place. Mark the date, historians.

P.S.: A reader helpfully notes a desert-island-like location yet to be touched by history!

--Michael Crowley

via The New Republic

A Strong Leader

2006-07-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

A Strong Leader
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

This man discovered this mountain on an expedition to Norway. Strongly decisive, he ignored the naysayers who said it couldn't be discovered. He also ignored those who insisted that the mountain had already been discovered. That man is me.

...a weak and indecisive leader

2006-07-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

A weak and indecisive leader
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

This man, Johnny Dimas, lives in a pre-9/11 mindset. Deeply unpopular, Johnny creates an impression of online camaraderie by creating multiple accounts on blogger.com, then posts comments to his blog under those different names. Those different aliases will have short conversations with each other, build upon each others comments, and jokingly insult Johnny, creating an impression of an online community.

Howard Dean and Tom Harkin

2006-07-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

Howard Dean and Tom Harkin
Originally uploaded by gopherpl.

This is the man Johnny supported for president after being gullible enough to travel to Iowa to volunteer on the advice of a friend. Johnny thought he could be of help, and with his help, Dean, the favorite to win, received third place in the Iowa Caucus.