fuck

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

visibility was 50 feet

Before anything else, I found a new really kickass blog that won the Koufax Award last year for basically "blog that should get more love." It's called Echidne of the Snakes. It's written by a self-styled "recovering economist" named J. Goodrich; formally a feminist-only blog, now merely feminism-focused but also full of links and interesting commentary about all kinds of modern social and political issues (she recently wrote a piece for The American Prospect. Also I'm finally adding Salon's "Broadsheet" after having read it for about a month now without comment here. It's kind of a feminist review; lots of summaries/commentaries about feminist issues as they come along, but it's full of links to more detailed blogs and it's a good way to keep aware of the countless and continuously evolving ways we still put women down as a society. Also the writers are good. I slipped a link to The American Prospect in there in case you didn't notice. That's going with the links, too.

Today's video is "Natty Dread" by Bob Marley and the Wailers, which has long been one of my favorite Marley songs.


To switch gears completely: Cori left for Bolivia last night, but spent the night before at Vale's and then today, after taking it verrry easy in the morning/early afternoon we took a walk ISO some presents for various people. Cori bought some stuff in Bellavista and then we got hungry and each ate an entire pizza at Amadeus (she had cheese, I had cheese with roquefort and salame). Then we headed up to El Mundo del Vino, where she bought cardboard boxes with wine in them for the various families she'll be staying with in Bolivia. It was great to pass the day with her, we had a good and very relaxing time. She got stressed about buying presents but not too much and the rest of the time was just beautiful day, nice walk, good pizza. Also I had a beer with lunch called Erdinger that I really liked. And it came with cacho de cabra, which is a kind of spicy dried pepper flakes! Strange but, well, mmmmmmm...

We said goodbye at around 6 so last night Vale and I were left to our own devices. Vale wanted to take a walk, so out we went. A short walk turned into a medium-long walk as we wound through streets over by Bellas Artes and Parque Forestal, past buildings I'd never seen or noticed before. It was a pretty night, if a little chilly. We ended up at a little bar called Navetierra, where we got a couple of really good pisco sours and some camembert with crackers and soaked in the ambience (very artsy/political with a slightly overwhelming dash of second-hand smoke). The conversations about me leaving are getting harder; we both know it's inevitable but neither of us wants to separate. And as the time draws closer we both get a little sadder. But we can't really do anything but try not to be sad and to enjoy the time we have left together.

Emily B gets in tomorrow from Sao Paolo around 1, which will be fun. But it means that I've gotta finish this blankety-blank Armed Conflict final today, pretty much. So off I go to do that. Citizens as targets in internal conflicts and the friction between the principle of imparciality/neutrality and needing to do the utmost to protect victims. Cheerful stuff.

i will never again bowl at mall plaza vespucio

WARNING: This post has a lot of cuss words. Apologies in advance.

After the closing academic stuff with COPA yesterday in (snow-covered!) Cajon de Maipo, which were actually not that bad, Vale and I decided to go bowling. The idea had come up after the form-filling ended, but no one was interested, so we went by ourselves. It was really fun, after an execrable start by me (0-1-1 for a three-frame total of 2). Vale rolled a 105(!) in the first game and I rolled an 88. Bowling is nice because, well, when I'm not with Lincoln and Jack, I don't care about losing. At all. We were both having a blast and in the second game I really got on a roll, no pun intended, with four strikes in a row! The best bowling game of my entire life! In the 9th frame I rolled a 9, giving me a 121 in the 7th frame. And then the motherfucking lane turned off. We'd paid for only a half hour, and once that half hour was up the piece of shit just shut down. No matter that we were THREE FRAMES TOTAL FROM FINISHING. And that I was on the cusp of bowling the best game of my life, feeling so happy. I didn't get it at first, but the girl at the counter said there was nothing she could do because they were closing soon. It was out of her power to turn the lane back on for three minutes. I was so mad I couldn't speak. Had I been in the States I would have argued, whined, pleaded, whatever, but in my furious state I couldn't even begin to get the words out in Spanish. The dumbest fucking shit ever is the phrase that kept repeating in my head. Vale was still in "we're just having fun" mode, not "oh my God this is something special to me because I have never even come close to doing this well" mode, so she didn't get why I was so furious. Still, she got that I was, so we left in relative silence.

She told me when we got back that she had been a little scared, not so much by me being angry (she's seen me mad before, mostly about the stupefying IFSA bureaucracy) but by how fast I went from incredibly happy to flat and speechless. It was a little weird, to be sure. But I recovered by the time we got back.

Today will be a day for working on my Armed Conflict final, which I want to turn in on Tuesday, and then at five heading over to give the Fulham Cohens some things to take back for me. Cori is going to spend the night here tonight while her family flies back to the States; she leaves tomorrow for Bolivia to spend some time with her (Maryland) roommate's family. Also the return ticket situation remains frustrating. I haven't heard back again from Bonnie of Advantage Travel, but the latest word was that I'm on my own to book a one-way. Fuck that noise.

v.s. naipaul knows sensuality

I'm about two thirds done with A Bend in the River. This afternoon I came across a passage that was, well, see the title of this post. The narrator has been taken to a party by an old friend and becomes enamored of the hostess of the party.

"Indar was embraced by Yvette as we left. And I was embraced, as the friend. It was delicious to me, as the climax to that evening, to press that body close, soft at this late hour, and to feel the silk of the blouse and the flesh below the silk.

"There was a moon now - there had been none earlier. It was small and high. The sky was full of heavy clouds, and the moonlight came and went. it was very quiet. We could hear the rapids; they were about a mile way. The rapids in moonlight! I said to Indar, 'Let's go to the river'. And he was willing."

Hoo boy.

yesterday i was really sick

The worst possible timing: I had a paper due yesterday and I have an exam tomorrow, but starting Monday evening, well, let's just say it was comin' out both ends. Plus I had a fever, plus the kind of energy-destroying pain in all my joints that fits in the category "flu-like symptoms," so much so that I didn't even have enough energy to watch TV. Oh and sharp pain right below my belly button. Aaaand I basically didn't sleep on Monday night cause I was getting up every half hour to go to the bathroom.

So I emailed my prof basically saying, "Sorry, I couldn't finish, please don't penalize me, I'll turn it in tomorrow," and my hunch is that he'll be okay with it. He's a super nice guy. Vale took really good care of me yesterday, brought me juice and ginger ale and made some chicken soup and white rice and even (holy crap!) home-made apple sauce that she just kind of whipped up in the kitchen. And today I'm feeling all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I'm about to get cracking and finish up that final. Worse comes to worse I get a few points knocked off, which is okay because all I have to do is pass and I'm not in danger of failing. The paper isn't great by any means but it doesn't completely suck. In other news, I found another great video, again thanks to Crooks and Liars, this time of a guy named Andy McKee who apparently has spent a lot of time practicing on his guitar. Sweet.



Add that album ("Dreamcatcher") to my wish list.

Also, for anyone who pays attention to this kind of thing, I always knew Digby was a woman. Everyone always called her "he" (even me once or twice, I think), but that always felt wrong to me. Seriously. Speaking of which, congratulations, progressive blogosphere, winners of the Paul Wellstone Citizen Leadership Award. Suck it, Lindsey.

And now, breakfast.

fulham cohens!

Last night (after working all afternoon at Starlight Cafe) I went with Vale to the F-C's apart-hotel! We chatted for a while in the apartment and then walked over (all of two blocks) to Giratorio, the 16th-floor rotating restaurant at Los Leones. I had never eaten while spinning in a circle before. It was pretty strange. But the food was good and it was great to see all of them. Afterwards we went back to the apartment and had tea and cake. Somehow (not hard to guess how with a family that loves HP so much) the conversation swung to the final Harry Potter book. Amongst much laughter and argument we created a betting pool (me and the Fulham-Cohens, Vale abstained; I think she was a little intimidated by how into it everyone got) for who's going to die in this book. We made a list of 21 names and everyone voted whether each character was going to die or not. Winner gets 20 bucks from Arthur, unless he wins, in which case everyone gives him 20 bucks. It was really fun, but finally Vale and I had to duck out because I'd told Dad I'd call around 10:30 to say happy father's day.

We got back to Vale's around 10:45 and I connected with Lincoln right away. We all (Mom Dad Linc me) talked for about half an hour, which was nice. Jack had fallen asleep, but we made plans to talk again on Tuesday. They all sounded really good; there was a lot of talk about SilverDocs and I'm sorry to be missing it this year. I'm edging closer to a July 18 return date, I think it's the last day I can come home without paying huge fees or getting a new ticket. One crazy thing I found out yesterday, before I get back to work on these finals (yippee!): A one-way ticket from Miami to National costs $79 in economy class, and $549 in first class. Who on earth would pay five hundred and fifty bucks for a 2.5-hour flight? That just seems stupid and excessive, but then again probably shouldn't surprise me. Okay, back to work. Here's to getting through Thursday!

starbucks failed me

After prolonged attempts to get online at two different Starbucks, I gave up and came back to Vale's apartment with her (she had been running some errands and getting her hair cut). She's been feeling lightheaded/dizzy/nauseous all day and I just took her pressure and it's scarily low (99/52, and with a pulse of 118!). So now she's calling Rodrigo and hopefully he will have some advice.

My electoral systems final is coming along despite the incredibly annoying Starbucks interlude; it's going to end up being pretty dry but not entirely devoid of purpose, which is about all I could have hoped for at this point. At the very least, I'm learning a lot about Portugal, Ireland and Greece that I never knew.

Also, the sunset was really beautiful today, a half-cloudy orange sky in the west throwing pink light off of the snowy mountains. I wanted to take a picture but of course my camera pooped out at exactly the wrong time. It's okay, there will be other opportunities for nice shots like that before I leave. Speaking of which, that date is rapidly approaching and I need to email the damn travel agent again because they never got back to me the first time about my return ticket. So I'm going to go do that and then keep pounding out histories of political parties. Because, you know, I just love political parties.

some brief friday notes

My two desert-island albums, I have realized conclusively (by "conclusively" I mean "because they have remained an unchanged pair for several years") are London Calling by the Clash and, of course, as anyone who knows me knows, the greatest album of all time, Graceland, by Paul Simon. The one a furious, musically and lyrically brilliant assault against the establishment and the other the product of a songwriter grappling beautifully with the onset of middle age and a painful divorce. The first, of course, is Graceland, the second, London Calling. Just kidding.

The rain in Santiago is paradoxical and cruel, I think whatever god reigns over Santiago weather has Bush's Iraq planners advising on winter weather patterns. A cap of cold air traps smog in Santiago (our presence in Iraq, which provokes massive violence there), rain comes in every once in a while to briefly clean things up ("surges"), but that same rain makes the air colder, meaning more air gets trapped (surges repress violence for a couple of days and then people just get more pissed and more violent). Then again, if it didn't rain, the smog would keep getting worse with no relief. And here I see the problem in my metaphor: The surges don't actually provide any relief at all except to the demented, divorced-from-reality people in charge. The rain does. Also the rain dramatically improves the view: The Andes are gorgeous again. So, an imperfect metaphor. Still, the vicious-cycle parallels are interesting.

One thing that comes up a lot when meeting and talking to Chileans, especially those of the university variety, is about the domestic problems of the US. Here the greatest social problems are income equality and, more specifically but just as embarrassingly, centuries of abuse, repression and neglect of Chile's substantial Mapuche minority. The correlating deep, embarrassing and infuriating social problem in the US, I would (and do, frequently) argue, is racism. Recently I've started reading more about the immigration debate going on at home, and it's obvious to pretty much anyone with an ounce of sense that the underlying conflict is fear and hatred of "brown people." The xenophobia of everyone from Lou Dobbs to the "Minutemen" of Texas and Arizona to some of the residents of Hazletown, PA (h/t Orcinus, post "Hatin' on Immigrants") makes me shake with anger. I want to get on a roll here, but because I really should be working on my Electoral Systems final, I'm going to come full circle and end with the Clash's take on anger in "The Clampdown":

Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
Do you know that you can use it?

Amen.

P.S. A new blog is going up in the links: ImmigrationProf Blog, which is written by a trio of law professors at UC Davis. Represent.

P.P.S. ¡NINGÚN SER HUMANO ES ILEGAL!

the downside of rain in stgo

Is that it seems Chilean urban planners and engineers aren't very good at drainage. This makes sense, on one hand, because Stgo is generally a dry city, but it does rain EVERY WINTER and there are HUGE UNAVOIDABLE SHOE-SOAKING LAKES all over the place. Also, half an hour ago, while trying to jump over one of said lakes, I landed on slippery tiles and fell on my ass and now my left leg is wet and cold. But I kept my shoes comparatively dry, so it was worth it, still, I think. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.

it's rainin' water

I'm back in the Isidora Goyenechea Starbucks for the first time in along time. There's no way I'd be back here on my own except that at 8 COPA is taking me, four other kids and a bunch of gringo study abroad advisors out to dinner at a really nice restaurant, Isla Negra, on El Bosque. Seeing as that's three blocks from here, and seeing as I needed a change of scenery in order to buckle down a little, I'm here now.

The buckling down is mostly in the form of working on my two final essays. I'm still kind of in the dark about what each will deal with specifically. That's okay for the European Political Economy one, because all that's due next week is a presentation outlining what I'm going to talk about. So I need some idea of a thesis and structure, but nothing really research-based or overly specific. Electoral Systems, however, is a bigger issue. It's due on Tuesday and I'm still not entirely sure what's going on with it. I've been snooping around on JSTOR (long live JSTOR!), but now I will expound for a couple of minutes in hopes of clearing this business up.

In new democracies, social cleavages tend to get defined early on and have deep historical roots. According to one school of thought, these early cleavages remain fundamentally unchanged throughout the evolution of the democracy. For example, in France the most fundamental cleavage is thought to be the rural-urban divide, and that divide still rules the day in French politics. It takes different forms and is seen across various levels of society: industrial labor verus agriculture, churchgoing country dwellers versus non-churchgoing urbanites, etc. This fundamental divide is the basis for the party breakdown in modern France, as such fundamental cleavages form the foundation for party breakdowns in most democracies. However, rapidly growing integration has led to huge immigrant and minority populations that are changing the scene: Witness the victory of Sarkozy, a Reagan-esque nationalist (thanks to Juan Cole for that particular comparison) whose campaign made use of white French people's reactionary fears of Muslim immigrant unrest. The same kinds of divides are coming to the fore in England, Spain, Germany, the United States (obviously) and even in the traditionally homogeneous Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Denmark. These are all highly developed, very stable Western democracies. But what of the less developed, newer European democracies who are participating in the same breakneck economic integration as those countries mentioned above, but without the accompanying influx of immigrants; i.e. what's up with countries whose populations are still remarkably homogeneous--religiously, ethnically, linguistically--like Ireland, Portugal, Poland and Greece? How do party politics break down in those countries, and how are they changing? Perhaps I should hypothesize that divides in those countries (I have to pick three, but that can be later) have to do traditionally with religious versus non-religious groups (i.e. commies), but increasingly have to do with protectionist/traditionalists versus integrationalist/progressives. That's a thought. Then again might be a bit ambitious for a ten-page paper with no time for original research. Still, good start. Good job, freewriting Luke.

BUT, the really big news of today is that it's raining and raining. This morning and early afternoon saw veritable torrents (relatively speaking, of course), and after a mid-afternoon break it's raining lightly but steadily now. Apparently this will continue for a couple of days, which means two very, very wonderful things: First, the mountains will look spectacular as soon as the clouds go away; and second, the air is clean as hell. It's so strange it is to grow accustomed to things a quarter of a mile away being hazy and indistinct in the middle of the day and then all of a sudden being able to see individual trees on a hill miles distant; like walking around all day wondering why things don't look quite right, then realizing that one of your glasses lenses has a substantial smudge on it, then cleaning it off and remembering what things are supposed to look like.

I posted a video the last time this happened, but today's rain-induced happiness can't quite measure up to the giddy ecstasy of that other day, because the wait hadn't been as long. So no video today. Still, frisbee is going to be 85 billion times better on Sunday because the air will be pristine. Oh baby! And now, it's time to get back to work. Profe Altman sent me an article by Alberto Alesina about fractionalization, complete with table of measurements of the ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalization of almost 200 countries. Hott with two t's.

P.S. That link to Cole above is worth checking out; I know nothing about French politics so for all I know he's totally wrong, and his interests are certainly biased in favor of the Muslim world, but it's still a very interesting brief analysis.

P.P.S. The bathroom of this Starbucks smells fantastic.

weekend in brief

First, everyone should check out this really cool video that Dad sent me by email. I highly suggest watching the whole thing:

500 YEARS OF WOMEN IN ART


Anyhow, highlights of the weekend include me driving for the first time in almost 11 months, yesterday. I made crab cakes for Vale and her aunt and uncle (the kids got tuna with mustard, which is apparently a house favorite), and Vale and I had to go to the grocery store to pick up some key ingredients, like crab meat. So I drove Rodrigo's car to Alto Las Condes and back. It was kind of nerve-wracking getting in, just because it had been so long, but as soon as we started going it was fun and easy. Helped that it was Sunday morning and the road's weren't exactly crowded. And then, on the way back, instead of going straight to Rodrigo and Cecilia's house, I drove past it a little ways and pulled into a little mini parking lot/lookout type place, and passed the keys to Vale. She's 28 years old and had never driven a car, not even in a parking lot. So she had her first driving experience; she wasn't bad for a first-timer although the whole staying-in-your-lane thing would have been a problem had there been any other cars around. Pays to live waaayyyy out there.

Also we watched "Goodbye Lenin," a very sweet German movie about a kid from East Germany growing up and coming of age during the fall of the USSR. I liked it a lot, and so did Vale, although she fell asleep for about the last 20 or 30 minutes. We watched with Spanish subtitles and I got everything except for a couple of words here and there (like maybe 8 total the whole movie), which was a good feeling.

Yesterday also was my first time back at frisbee after a two-week absence, and despite having eaten a crab cake sandwich and fries before playing, which caused a few issues towards the beginning, I played really well and had a great time. Afterwards of course included a trip to Tortilla Factory. Blackberry, raspberry, banana, apple and blueberry smoothie and a cup of coffee plus the house corn chips and salsa...perrrrfect. Vale wanted to go buy some tea after that at a hoity-toity tea store in Alto Las Condes, so we walked across the street. I also hadn't just kind of mosied and people-watched and window-shopped in a mall for a long time. Malls, love them or hate them, are interesting places. We went into a couple of book stores trying to find a copy of Intérprete de Emociones (Interpreter of Maladies) but the translated edition is apparently out of print and sold out everywhere. Vale also dragged me into various clothing stores and made me try on coats. If I had money to burn I'd like to buy a nice pea-coat-type thing, the ones I tried on were really comfortable and I like the way they look. But the cheapest one was like 150 bucks (which, I suppose, isn't that much in the long run, but it's too much for me right now), so my very nice parka and various sweatshirts and fleeces will suffice just fine for the time being.

We're reading right now, in European Political Economy, about the adjustments that OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development--basically Europe, North America, some Latin America, and E/SE Asia) countries have had to make over the last 30 years to their trade and monetary policy and also to their welfare states. I think the latter is what I'm going to write my final paper about for the class. How countries like Sweden and Denmark, which have powerful social-democratic welfare states that, to me, seem overwhelmingly fairer and more appealing than the residual welfare states (bascially, no help until you're screwed, and then not very much) of the Anglo countries or the corporatist, conservative welfare states of Germany and Austria (extremely compartmentalized and unevenly distributed help based on job category). The de-commodification of labor in the Norwegian countries is wonderful but they are the most vulnerable to collapse under current structural (globalization, general aging of the population) and institutional (the EU, weakening of labor organizations) changes. It sucks for them, and I think how they respond to those changes has been and is going to be really interesting and instructive. Can they make it without compromising their whole systems, and what are they doing to try?

Speaking of which, I should eat breakfast and then get reading. We've got class today for the first time in months because we missed a couple of Wednesdays and need to make them up. Hope you enjoyed the video.

tinariwen

Some big things in the past couple of days:

Bought "Aman Iman: Water is Life" by Tinariwen, a group of Touaregs who started playing together as separatist rebels in Mali in the 80s. Their music is absolutely amazing. I realize at moments like this the disadvantages of my tendency to use lots and lots of superlatives without much regard for degree. This album blows me away every time I listen to it, it deserves superlatives that are beyond my vocabulary. A video follows of them playing with Santana at Montreux.

Finished "Four Quartets," by T.S. Eliot, which Dad mailed to me last week. It is stunning. I found that reading it reminds me a little of reading Spanish, in the sense that I really had to pay attention to every word, and to how every word related to every other word, in order to really understand what he was trying to say. This in contrast with, say, A Bend in the River, which I'm also reading, and can much more easily read without devoting my full attention to it. Dad: Thank you.

Jack was home last weekend and part of this week, and I got to talk to him on Monday night, which was great. He sounded tired (he'd gotten a vaccine earlier that day for El Salvador) but so good and it was really nice to hear his voice, hear how he's doing, what his plans are shaping up to be for the summer, and everything. I got to talk to Lincoln for a long time, too, which was also really nice. He's done with his first year and back home for the summer and I hadn't caught up with him for real in a while. Monday night was a good night. On a related note, Skype is a treacherous friend. On a note related to the last one (things that drove me completely off the wall this week), the IFSA-Butler/Michigan/DOE bureaucracy finally broke me. I can't write any more about that right now because my heart rate will start going up again and I'd rather maintain my current, calm state of mind.

One of my final projects (Political Economy) got pushed back and now is not due in preliminary form until the week after next. This removes a huge amount of pressure and will allow me to focus in my Electoral Systems final, which is due the 19. Speaking of David Altman (my Elec Sys professor), today he asked me to edit a paper he'd written in English comparing Uruguay and Switzerland. It's very interesting, not just because of the subject matter (I know little about Switzerland and less about Uruguay), but because it's strange to read the writing of someone who is clearly academically knowledgeable and accomplished but who is at the same time obviously not writing in his first language. So it's a mix of really obvious grammatical mistakes and interesting direct translations (you can say "como una moneda de esos sentimientos" in Spanish, but "as a coin of those feelings" doesn't really make sense in English; what he meant was "exemplifying those feelings") and elevated and technical language. I'm enjoying it a lot, plus it appears that I'll be compensated financially for my efforts.

Other important things have happened and this was originally going to be a long post, but I got distracted first yesterday and then today, so that's all you're gonna get at the moment. Oh, I saw Zodiac. Good movie.

Okay, so here's Tinariwen featuring Santana. Music starts a minute in.

apparently blair 07 graduates today

Thank you, Julia S-M's away message. Congratulations, friends' younger siblings.

Today is a day of homicidal feelings against Skype, an astounding technology that betrayed me last night and today. Because it's just software, I feel no loyalty to it, and now I want to kill it, or at the very least, for it to acknowledge my attempts to add money to my account so I can call home. Jack is there and I haven't talked to him in a bajillion years and it was so wonderful to hear his voice last night even for two minutes. I told him I'd call today but Skype is still telling me to go fuck myself, so I'm kind of stuck. Hopefully someone at home will finally get Skype today and we can talk for free, Skype credit be damned.

Okay, I need to go do some (a lot of) work now. Deep breaths all around, I can't wait for yoga tonight.

john cole

I will be adding Balloon Juice to my links after I finish this post. You will understand why after reading this Greenwald post about the new right-wing whine that "al-Qaeda tortures, too, why did the liberal media hammer home Abu Ghraib but not this?" Greenwald has lots of detailed analysis, but Cole's post, which he links to, sums it up very succinctly. In its entirety:

"It isn’t news because they are terrorists, you fucking simpletons. Yesterday, my cat scratched himself then shit in a box. The media didn’t report that, either."

Would be funny if it wasn't so infuriating.