| Tuesday, January 31, 2006 |
| especially sleazy... |
this story skiped past me somehow a month ago. what a disgusting, horrible person is Bill Frist.
Frist's AIDS Charity Paid Consultants
By Jonathan M. Katz and John Solomon
The Associated Press
Saturday 17 December 2005
Washington - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful's nonprofit.
The returns for World of Hope Inc., obtained by The Associated Press, also show the charity raised the lion's share of its $4.4 million from just 18 sources. They gave between $97,950 and $267,735 each to help fund Frist's efforts to fight AIDS.
The tax forms, filed nine months after they were first due, do not identify the 18 major donors by name.
Frist's lawyer, Alex Vogel, said Friday that he would not give their names because tax law does not require their public disclosure. Frist's office provided a list of 96 donors who were supportive of the charity, but did not say how much each contributed.
The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.
World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans - Franklin Graham's Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes' Esperanza USA, for example.
The rest of the money went to overhead. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist's longtime political fundraiser, Linus Catignani. One is jointly run by Linda Bond, the wife of Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo.
The charity also hired the law firm of Vogel's wife, Jill Holtzman Vogel, and Frist's Tennessee accountant, Deborah Kolarich.
Kolarich's name recently surfaced in an e-mail involving Frist's controversial sale of stock in his family founded health care company. That transaction is now under federal investigation.
Jill Holtzman Vogel, who is raising money for a run for the state Senate in Virginia in 2007, has received thousands in contributions this year from Catignani & Bond and from her husband, among numerous other sources, according to data released by the Virginia Public Access Project.
more...
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1/31/2006 10:51:00 PM
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| it's all in how you ask the question and how you answer it... |
from today's paper:
The Washington Post notes inside that Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold may have caught Attorney General Gonzales being a bit creative. During Gonzales' confirmation hearings a year ago, Feingold prodded him about executive power and happened to ask whether the president is allowed to order warrant-less wiretapping. Gonzales' answer: That's a "hypothetical situation."
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1/31/2006 10:04:00 AM
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| Monday, January 30, 2006 |
| that shit smell is not on your shoes, it's coming from the administration.... |
Prosecutor Will Step Down from Lobbyist Case
By Philip Shenon and Elisabeth Bumiller
The New York Times
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012706J.shtml
Friday 27 January 2006
Washington - The investigation of Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist, took a surprising new turn on Thursday when the Justice Department said the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step down next week because he had been nominated to a federal judgeship by President Bush.
The prosecutor, Noel L. Hillman, is chief of the department's public integrity division, and the move ends his involvement in an inquiry that has reached into the administration as well as the top ranks of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill.
The administration said that the appointment was routine and that it would not affect the investigation, but Democrats swiftly questioned the timing of the move and called for a special prosecutor.
The announcement came as Mr. Bush faced a barrage of questions about why he would not make public "grip-and-grin" photographs of him with Mr. Abramoff. The photographs apparently show Mr. Bush and Mr. Abramoff smiling at White House Hanukkah parties and Republican fund-raising receptions.
Mr. Bush's position, which he offered at a news conference on Thursday morning that was peppered with questions about Mr. Abramoff, was that the photographs were so common as to be almost meaningless and that it was part of his job "to shake hands with people and smile." He said he could not remember posing for the pictures, or, for that matter, even meeting Mr. Abramoff.
"I had my picture taken with him, evidently," Mr. Bush said. "I've had my picture taken with a lot of people. Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with them or know them very well."
He said, "I'm also mindful that we live in a world in which those pictures will be used for pure political purposes, and they're not relevant to the investigation."
The White House, which announced Mr. Bush's selection of Mr. Hillman for the court in a routine e-mail message on Wednesday that included 15 other nominations to judgeships and federal jobs, dismissed the calls for a special prosecutor.
"It's nothing but pure politics," said Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary. "The Justice Department is holding Mr. Abramoff to account, and the career Justice prosecutors are continuing to fully investigate the matter."
A special prosecutor would not be especially welcome at the White House. Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the C.I.A. leak case, is more than two years into an investigation that has resulted in the indictment of a top vice-presidential aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., and has left Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, under investigation.
Mr. Hillman's departure from the Justice Department creates a vacancy at the top of the Abramoff inquiry only three weeks after Mr. Abramoff, once one of the city's most powerful Republican lobbyists and a major fund-raiser for Mr. Bush, announced his guilty plea and agreed to testify against others, possibly including members of Congress.
A former senior White House budget official, David H. Safavian, has been indicted in the case on charges of lying about his contacts with Mr. Abramoff, a former lobbying partner. The Justice Department's plea agreement with Mr. Abramoff makes clear that prosecutors are investigating several members of Congress and other public officials who are suspected of having accepted gifts from the lobbyist in exchange for official acts.
Colleagues at the Justice Department say Mr. Hillman has been involved in day-to-day management of the Abramoff investigation since it began almost two year ago. The inquiry, which initially focused on accusations that Mr. Abramoff defrauded Indian tribes out of tens of millions of dollars in lobbying fees, is being described within the department as the most important federal corruption investigation in a generation.
Mr. Hillman's nomination for a judgeship was among the factors cited Thursday by four Democratic lawmakers, two senators and two representatives, in calling on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to name a special prosecutor to oversee the corruption investigation.
The timing of Mr. Hillman's nomination "jaundices this whole process," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in an interview. "They have to appoint a special counsel. I think there will be broad support for one."
Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, called the timing "startling" and said, "You have one of the chief prosecutors removed from a case that has tentacles throughout the Republican leadership of Congress, throughout the various agencies and into the White House."
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1/30/2006 09:23:00 AM
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| your tax dollars at work report... update |
damn those vegans and their plan to overtake the world....
This was mentioned briefly in a posting back in december I did, but here's more on how the gov't is going after terrorists...
ACLU Releases Government Photos
1/25/2006 9:41:15 PM
http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=75151
The ACLU of Georgia released copies of government files on Wednesday that illustrate the extent to which the FBI, the DeKalb County Division of Homeland Security and other government agencies have gone to compile information on Georgians suspected of being threats simply for expressing controversial opinions.
Two documents relating to anti-war and anti-government protests, and a vegan rally, prove the agencies have been "spying" on Georgia residents unconstitutionally, the ACLU said. (Related: ACLU Complaint -- PDF file)
For example, more than two dozen government surveillance photographs show 22-year-old Caitlin Childs of Atlanta, a strict vegetarian, and other vegans picketing against meat eating, in December 2003. They staged their protest outside a HoneyBaked Ham store on Buford Highway in DeKalb County.
An undercover DeKalb County Homeland Security detective was assigned to conduct surveillance of the protest and the protestors, and take the photographs. The detective arrested Childs and another protester after he saw Childs approach him and write down, on a piece of paper, the license plate number of his unmarked government car.
"They told me if I didn't give over the piece of paper I would go to jail and I refused and I went to jail, and the piece of paper was taken away from me at the jail and the officer who transferred me said that was why I was arrested," Childs said on Wednesday.
The government file lists anti-war protesters in Atlanta as threats, the ACLU said. The ACLU of Georgia accuses the Bush administration of labeling those who disagree with its policy as disloyal Americans.
"We believe that spying on American citizens for no good reason is fundamentally un-American, that it's not the place of the goverment or the best use of resources to spy on its own citizens and we want it to stop. We want the spies in our government to pack their bags, close up their notebooks, take their cameras home and not engage in the spying anymore," Gerald Weber of the ACLU of Georgia said during a news conference.
"We have heard of not a single, government surveillance of a pro-war group," Weber said. "And I doubt we will ever hear of a single surveillance of a pro-war group."
The ACLU wants Congress and the courts to order government agencies, including the FBI, to stop unconstitutional surveillance.
Weber said the ACLU of Georgia may sue the government, in order to define, once and for all, what unconstitutional surveillance is in a post-911 America.
Labels: tax dollars at work |
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1/30/2006 09:00:00 AM
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| Saturday, January 28, 2006 |
| too much money makes you insane |
from This Week:
At least a dozen multimillionaires have left money to themselves in hope of being brought back to life. The immortality seekers have not only arranged to be cryogenically frozen after death, reports The Wall Street Journal, but have put their wealth in “personal revival trusts” that will be waiting for them when scientists resuscitate them a century or two into the future. Arizona resort operator David Pizer, 64, has left himself roughly $10 million and calculates that, through the magic of compound interest, he might wake up as “the richest man in the world.”
upon being defrosted -- artist rendering of what Pizer sees....
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1/28/2006 10:52:00 AM
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| Friday, January 27, 2006 |
| homophobia makes strange bedfellows.... |
this from TP:
The NYT is alone in revealing there is at least one issue where Iran and the United States can be allies: They both don't want two gay rights groups to have a voice at the United Nations. The United States supported Iran in recommending the denial of a request by two gay rights groups to be given consultative status at the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council. The status would have allowed the groups to join almost 3,000 organizations that are allowed to distribute materials at meetings. Other countries that agreed with Iran and the United States included Cuba, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.
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1/27/2006 09:33:00 AM
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| Thursday, January 26, 2006 |
| why milton friedman is an idiot... |
"Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government." -- milton friedman
from Today's Paper:
The DuPont Co. and seven other companies agreed, at the EPA's behest, to phase out the usage of a cancer-causing chemical that's used in Teflon. The news comes on the heels of DuPont's recent payment of a $16.5 million EPA fine for systematically suppressing information that established the toxicity of the chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid. PFOA is also found in microwave popcorn bags and synthetic fabrics, among other products.
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1/26/2006 07:16:00 AM
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| Tuesday, January 24, 2006 |
| what the president meant to say.... |
I'm sitting at the lounge at Heathrow waiting for my plane to be called and noticed this story. Why is it that the president never seems to say exactly what he means to say and needs someone to clarify what he meant to say sometime later. you see what I'm saying?!?
White House Was Told Hurricane Posed Danger
By ERIC LIPTON
Jan 24, 2006, NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/national/nationalspecial/24katrina.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 - The White House was told in the hours before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans that the city would probably soon be inundated with floodwater, forcing the long-term relocation of hundreds of thousands of people, documents to be released Tuesday by Senate investigators show.
A Homeland Security Department report submitted to the White House at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the storm hit, said, "Any storm rated Category 4 or greater will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching."
The internal department documents, which were forwarded to the White House, contradict statements by President Bush and the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, that no one expected the storm protection system in New Orleans to be breached.
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," Mr. Bush said in a television interview on Sept. 1. "Now we're having to deal with it, and will."
Other documents to be released Tuesday show that the weekend before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Homeland Security Department officials predicted that its impact would be worse than a doomsday-like emergency planning exercise conducted in Louisiana in July 2004.
In that drill, held because of common knowledge that New Orleans was susceptible to hurricane-driven flooding, emergency planners predicted that in a Category 3 storm, one million people would be forced to move away, 17 percent of the nation's oil refining capacity would be knocked out and as many as 60,000 lives might be lost.
"Exercise projection is exceeded by Hurricane Katrina real-life impacts," the Aug. 27 department report said, two days before the storm hit New Orleans.
The loss of life in Hurricane Katrina was far less - at least 1,350 deaths have been confirmed so far - but the estimated number of dislocated residents was not far off.
A White House spokesman, asked about the seeming contradiction between Mr. Bush's statement on Sept. 1 and the warning as the storm approached, said the president meant to say that once the storm passed and it initially looked as if New Orleans had gotten through the hurricane without catastrophic damage, no one anticipated at that point that the levees would be breached.
The Senate investigators have also found evidence that at least some federal and state officials were aware last summer that the hurricane evacuation planning in the New Orleans area was incomplete.
"We're at less than 10 percent done with this trans planning when you consider the buses and the people," said a summary of a July briefing held with local, state and federal officials regarding a possible hurricane in Louisiana and referring to transportation planning. "If you think soup lines in the Depression were long, wait til you see the lines at these collection points," the summary said, referring to buses that were supposed to help pick up people to evacuate New Orleans.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who is chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said that despite such evidence, officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency had told investigators that leading up to Hurricane Katrina they believed that local and state governments could handle the evacuation on their own.
"It is another example of a lack of coordination and planning and a disconnect between what the FEMA officials' perception was and what the reality was facing state and local officials," Ms. Collins said.
Separately Monday, a Democrat on the House committee that is also investigating Hurricane Katrina urged Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, who is the chairman of the House inquiry, to enforce a subpoena presented to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld for documents related to the storm.
The Democrat, Representative Charlie Melancon of Louisiana, said in a letter that recent interviews by House investigators had produced evidence that "the Defense Department frustrated FEMA's attempts to get this aid delivered to the stricken region," and that the documents from the Pentagon were necessary to address the accusations.
A Defense Department spokesman declined to comment on the letter.
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1/24/2006 07:18:00 AM
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| Monday, January 23, 2006 |
| a voice from the wilderness.... |
an evangelical soldier takes off his blinders and look what he finds....
Wayward Christian soldiers
Charles Marsh
The New York Times
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/20/opinion/edmarsh.php
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia In the past several years, American evangelicals - and I am one of them - have amassed greater political power than at any time in our history. But at what cost to our witness and the integrity of our message?
Recently, I took a few days to reread the war sermons delivered by influential evangelical ministers during the lead up to the Iraq war.
In that period, from the fall of 2002 through the spring of 2003, many of the most respected voices in American evangelical circles blessed President George W. Bush's war plans, even when doing so required them to recast Christian doctrine.
Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, whose weekly sermons are seen by millions of television viewers, led the charge with particular fervor. "We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible," said Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. "God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers."
In an article carried by the convention's Baptist Press news service, a missionary wrote that "American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Both Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, the editor of the conservative World magazine and a former advisor to Bush on faith-based policy, echoed these sentiments, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims.
Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the hugely popular "Left Behind" series, spoke of Iraq as "a focal point of end-time events," whose special role in the earth's final days will become clear after invasion, conquest and reconstruction. Jerry Falwell declared that "God is pro-war" in the title of an essay he wrote in 2004.
The war sermons rallied the evangelical congregations behind the invasion of Iraq. An astonishing 87 percent of all white evangelical Christians in the United States supported the president's decision in April 2003.
Recent polls indicate that 68 percent of white evangelicals continue to support the war. But what surprised me, looking at these sermons nearly three years later, was how little attention they paid to Christian moral doctrine.
Some tried to square the U.S. invasion with Christian "just war" theory, but such efforts could never quite reckon with the criterion that force must only be used as a last resort.
Some preachers tried to link Saddam Hussein with wicked King Nebuchadnezzar of Biblical fame, but these arguments depended on esoteric interpretations of the Old Testament.
The single common theme among the war sermons appeared to be this: Our president is a real brother in Christ, and because he has discerned that God's will is for our nation to be at war against Iraq, we shall gloriously comply.
Such sentiments are a far cry from those expressed in the Lausanne Covenant of 1974. More than 2,300 evangelical leaders from 150 countries signed that statement, the most significant milestone in the movement's history.
Convened by Billy Graham and led by John Stott, the revered Anglican evangelical priest and writer, the signatories affirmed the global character of the church of Jesus Christ and the belief that "the church is the community of God's people rather than an institution, and must not be identified with any particular culture, social or political system, or human ideology."
Unlike the Pope John Paul II, who said that invading Iraq would violate Catholic moral teaching and threaten "the fate of humanity," or even Pope Benedict XVI, who has said there were "not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq," Stott did not speak publicly on the war. But in a recent interview, he shared with me his abiding concerns.
"Privately, in the days preceding the invasion, I had hoped that no action would be taken without United Nations authorization," he told me. "I believed then and now that the American and British governments erred in proceeding without UN approval."
Stott referred me to "War and Rumors of War," a chapter from his 1999 book, "New Issues Facing Christians Today," as the best account of his position. There he wrote that the Christian community's primary mission must be "to hunger for righteousness, to pursue peace, to forbear revenge, to love enemies, in other words, to be marked by the cross."
What will it take for American evangelicals to recognize our mistaken loyalty? We have increasingly isolated ourselves from the shared faith of the global Church, and there is no denying that our Faustian bargain for access and power has undermined the credibility of our moral and evangelistic witness in the world.
(Charles Marsh, a professor of religion at the University of Virginia, is the author of ''The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, from the Civil Rights Movement to Today.'')
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1/23/2006 12:40:00 PM
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| secular dictatorship vs. islamic democracy |
a great article from.... written two years ago! Finally read it while on vacation,
Americans, If You Only Knew" by Regis Debray
Published in the Sept. 5 Le Figaro.
Translated from the French by Benjamin Storey
and Donovan Hohn.
Printed in Harper's Magazine Jan 2004
Judging by results, as they say in the military, it appears that Paris had a clearer view of things in Baghdad than Washington did. In the New York Times of Feb. 23, 2003, I allowed myself to predict--merely by reading the newspapers in the light of history books--that the American war was going to "provoke chaos instead of order, and hatred instead of gratitude," while giving a "formidable second chance to the partisans of Bin Laden." That was before the "victory," and at the time many a distressed reader dismissed these somber prognostications as "ideological." An out-of-touch arch-Gaullist such as myself, however, is not bound by the euphemisms of transatlantic modesty. "When one tells it like it is," De Gaulle once remarked, "it's a scandal. If one says that England is an island, no one blinks. If one says that NATO has an American commander, everyone is shocked." To state the raw facts bluntly is a task, always thankless but never useless, reserved for those not in charge.
The Americans seem to have gotten themselves into an intractable mess in Iraq. They must now choose between a historical debacle if they hang on and a temporary setback if they let go. "We cannot leave Iraq before it is stabilized," declared a former CIA officer. But to maintain a prolonged foreign occupation of Iraq is to destabilize it only further. Once the invader departs, there will no doubt be a civil war, which will accelerate the dismemberment of the nation, giving rise to a fundamentalist regime, which will make at least some people miss the era of Saddam.
On the other hand, if the occupation persists, one can foresee a multifaceted terrorist escalation eating away at U.S. forces and aggravating ethnic and religious divisions. The Americans will bring in reinforcements, including Fijians and Norwegians. They'll talk of the final fifteen minutes and of last gasps. A coup d'etat or uprising will be inspired in Teheran (terrain more favorable to the West than Iraq is) but with irritating repercussions in Najaf, which will be transformed into a base of retreat for vengeful ayatollahs. The Americans will cling to Iraq as "useful" and ensconce themselves inside supposedly unbreachable bastions. Then, as the death toll mounts by the hundreds, the "bring the boys home" movement will spread like an oil slick across the United States, and a new, Democratic administration will make the prudent decision to stop the hemorrahaging when the vital interests of the United States are not at stake. But how many lives will be ruined in the meantime?
The neocon cliches set the courageous, clear-eyed inhabitants of Mars/America against the lofty, retiring souls of Venus/Europe. The former follow the hard principles of reality; the latter preach morality on the cheap. This distribution of roles reveals a case of imperial self-deception. The American leadership has come to believe in its dreamworld so completely that like some Alice in Horrorland, unable to escape from the mirror, it mistakes its intellectual fantasies for practical measures.
It was lured down this rabbit hole by three magic words, fallacies disguised as self-evident truths. First, "terrorism." Of course every great nation needs a great enemy, but there's a problem: although there are terrorist modes of action, terrorism itself does not exist. "The use of extreme violence against disarmed populations outside any context of declared war" (a definition of terrorism) is a tactic of opportunity, a mode of operation, which includes everything and its opposite, from Corsican guerrillas to the French, Algerian, and Palestinian resistance. Just as the ideas of my enemy were once ideology, so the violence of my dissidents will now be terrorism.
This adverb mistaken for a noun promises a hundred years' war--interminable because neither armistice nor capitulation is possible--in which the Empire, lacing up its boxing gloves to battle a swarm of flies, will exhaust its strength in a perpetually recommencing fight against everybody and nobody.
"Democracy" is the second of these magic words. Ultra-sovereignistic, the American hyper-nation reserves for itself the exclusive right to patriotism but intends to export "democracy" wherever and whenever it suits its interest. "Democracy" is the contemporary equivalent of the old "civilization," which brought to the backward peoples of the world the European colonialism of the nineteenth century, the humanitarian character of which has been largely forgotten. Then, too, the colonialists were supposedly rescuing the oppressed from tyranny, slavery, and fanaticism. But since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, democracy at home has never gotten in the way of prisons for recalcitrant foreigners or napalm for foreign dissidents.
And indeed, "one man, one vote" in the Middle East is not in the interest of the United States. If tomorrow the Americans could wave a magic wand and democraticize Iraq, they would have to pack their bags the next day. For, as a former Israeli foreign minister has said, the choice in this region is not between democracy and dictatorship but between secular dictatorship and Islamic democracy.
The third source of hynosis is "weapons of mass destruction." On Sept 11 it was nineteen men with box cutters. The Pentagon was preparing for cyberterrorism and got pocket knives. Tomorrow, it will be a rifle shot, a mortar shell, or a hunk of TNT. It is with the archaic and the artisanal that the best-armed country in the world--5 percent of the population, nearly 50 percent of the total military expenditure--should be concerned. The United States, a nation of engineers, is in thrall to a technological illusion and thinks of arms rather than men, visible devices rather than interior dispositions (belief in the afterlife is undetectable via infrared). The alliance of the two is certainly volatile, but the detonator is belief.
Nor should one underestimate the geographic expansion of legitimate interventions zones. Because any desert and any jungle can harbor a factory for weapons of terror, a superpower must have eyes everywhere in order to be tranquil at home. Every attack it launches on the other side of the world becomes an act of self-defense, and it is therefore possible to be both neo-isolationist and omni-interventionist, as the defensive perimeters of Los Angeles and Chicago are now situated in sub-Saharan Africa, the Red Sea, and perhaps, tomorrow, Cape Horn. But an escalation to immediate and total war is not the best way to bring states that finance terrorism to the light of reason.
Our moralists compete in criticisizing the lies, distortions, and exaggerations of our master planners. But the majesty that certain spin doctors showed in giving the international community nonexistent morsels to chew on should command our admiration. Every country, like every man and every animal, makes as much as it can of its own power, so who can blame those who have the material capacity for transforming their military emergency into the number-one moral emergency of all humanity? Plato permitted lying in only two occupations: doctors and statesmen. The preemptive strike in self-defense is as old as the Peloponnesian War.
Is is reassuring to note that the same distortions that allowed Washington to give credibility to this war will hasten its defeat in the end. The software of representation replaces reality with the illusion of a world made to order, as in a film or a sitcom, but only for so long. Today's dominators control the present by training the projectors, microphones, and lenses on whatever place, problem, or person they wish, but reality is what happens after the cameras leave. The dominated takes his time, which works in his favor. The media transmitted the images of celebration in a liberated Kabul of Afghan women unveiled, of the posthumous victory of Massoud, of the rediscovery of tolerance. But when the facts later become disagreeable, the Empire brings its reporters back home. No one sees the Afghan women back in their burkas, the Taliban everywhere, nor the 3,000 tons of opium, cultivated by Massoud's heirs, now headed west.
The ability to brainwash the world into believing one's domestic delusions has been the ambition of empires for three millennia, but America has transformed this advantage into a weakness. By aspiring to rule the little people of the world without taking into acount thier language, their religion, their memories--in sum, all that makes them other than we might like--the United States guarantees its own failure. Muslim houses are searched with dogs, X-rated theaters are opened, and one of the principal administrator of the universities of the oldest country in the world is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. This deliberate blindness, which transforms the occupied into a video-game target, is the curse of all ominpotent sovereignties.
Disdain does not pay in the long run, but how does one get through to deaf men who can support their empty ideas with a formidable reserve of dollars, patents, arms, and an enviable patriotism? With power, there is no other argument than power, a costly counterweight with which the European Union no longer wishes to be weighed down. Rome therefore decides for the Greeks. Did she not liberate them from Macedonian oppression? Did she not force the ferocious Phillip V to let go of Rhodes, Athens, and Pergamum? Is not the Roman camp the camp of liberty? The Achaean League thus awaited the decisions of the Senate, begging it to send a few legions to Greece, to stop the troubles on its Balkan perimeters. Rome is a Hellenic power, said Polybius. "The United States has become a European power," says Richard Holbrooke. And the Roman Senate plots to train the new Greece against the old one, the unconditionally loyal cities against the more insolent ones, who forget what they owe their protector.
That was two centuries before Christ. The procedures of subjection have hardly changed. Nor has voluntary servitude. When France had the means to be the "indispensable nation," she was equally suicidal and deaf, equally cultivated and stubborn, just as doctrinaire and unimaginative as the present titleholder. The exercise of power is anonymous, and its laws are universal. The day before yesterday, it was Rome. Tomorrow it will be China. That is why the free man is not anti-American but anti-imperial. He refuses to march to the pace of the cosmic metronome. He knows that soldiers like Faulkner, Orson Welles, and Dylan must be saved. But he laughs when people villify "knee-jerk anti-Americanism" so as to assimilate themselves, with good conscience, into the so-called New World Order, which knows how to recompense its own with money, prestige, authority, and influence.
With its proconsuls and its aircraft carriers, the rapacious and generous America revisits the time of colonizers drunk on their superiority, convinced of their liberating mission, and counting on reimbursing themselves directly. We built roads; they build airports. We brought books and schools; they bring videotapes. We brought penniless Catholic missionaries; they bring wealthy evangelical sects. But when, a century from now, our American friends come back to their senses and turn against this "capture of Baghdad" (along with the oil wells), it will be, without a doubt, with the same perspective, incredulous and annoyed, from which we French now regard the capture of Tunis or of Hue' (along with the good soil and coal mines). Historia non facit saltus. A certain historical wisdom and patience should make us indulgent, not blind, and still less complicit.
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1/23/2006 12:33:00 PM
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| on the road again -- end of journey |
well, I'm sitting in Neville's flat in London where it's cold and grey and for the first time in almost twenty days, I'm not wiping a layer of sweat from my neck. It's like taking a nice swim in barton springs after a hot summer's day....
well, as I noted the bellhop, Michael, at the Holiday In in Dar was going to turn me on to some local music. I was thrilled as I really had no interest in exploring Dar during the day. I had really grown weary of the ticks -- the local word for guys who come up to you with a big smile and a hello and after 30 seconds of pleasant banter want to sell you either a safari tour, a restaurant recommendation, or a girl to give you a massage. I agreed with Neil that Dar looks a lot like Tijuana -- it's a just a dirty poor city and I decided sitting by the hotel pool would be a better use of my time.
Strangely, of all the places in Tanzania, the waiters at the hotel restaurant had absolutely nil english proficiency and I could never exactly get my meals there without issue. Michael explained to me later that the restaurant manager hires only his relatives who are incompetent.
So, I arranged to meet Michael on friday night downstairs at the hotel at 8pm. He didn't show up till around 9pm, claiming some traffic accident. I was getting a little worried that he was just going to flake out on me and I would be stuck watching tv in my room. But off we went in a taxi driven by a friend of his. In exchange for his guiding me to the world of Tanzanian music I offered to buy him dinner and we went to this fantastic Thai restaurant on the rooftop of another restaurant which in turns out Michael had previously worked at. It seems he worked at several hotels -- he's a real gung ho guy who really wants to improve himself. He's studied cooking and some accounting. I tell him over dinner that he should really focus on learning computer skills because, well, it's the future of everything. He says he's got it in his head to learn architecture. He's a very serious guy, but you can tell he's got a good sense of humor but he doesn't like to show it too often (the macho african thing). He's half-Kenyan and half-Tanzanian and we discover that our birthdays are one day apart (though he's only 32).
As we're finishing dinner, in walks this short Indian man with two extremely tall and sexy women wearing sashes. One said Miss World Tourism. The other's said something Bikini Model. I took my napkin and rolled it up to look like sash and got our waitress laughing. Some guys came to their table and asked for a picture so I got one too. The world is just filled with celebrities -- you just have to keep you eye open for their sashes.
We bid the Miss whatevers adieu and take our cab (he's been waiting for us) out to the outskirts of the city. Michael has the cab pull over by the roadside and some small storefronts and for a moment I have that sinking feeling that maybe something bad is going to happen to me. I'm in a bit of a vulnerable situation. Michael walks off and leaves me with the cab driver who speaks no English (at least to me). And then returns a few minutes later with another man who is introduced to me as Michael's Uncle Ramson. We then head out back on the road and make out way now to a small hotel where in a room which reminded me of Austin's late/great Liberty Lunch club we saw the African Stars perform.
I buy drinks for us all (several roads of beer - though Michael drinks white wine) and the band is killer. It had a definite Zairian/Congolese sound with that Sam Mangwana guitar sound. They also had a group of eight hot girl dancers who would come out and do that thing -- if you've ever seen an African band play, you know what I'm talking about -- it's a loose dance style that borders on, well, pure sex. lots of shaking hips and wiggling booty.
After two beers, I'm ready to get up with Uncle Ramson and we're boogying on the dance floor. There's only one other group of white kids (they look like germans or danes) there. Michael is napping a bit at the table but gets up and dances a bit too. 2am hits and I need to head back to the hotel. Besides, Michael has to be at work at 6am. Michael gets us a cab and takes me back to the hotel so nothing bad happens to me, he says. Of course, our cab driver runs every red light between the club and the hotel.
I pass out quickly and the next day wake up to an overcast and rainy morning. I spend it sleeping and walking bbc world news until the sun peeks out and I dash down to the pool to catch what I can. then back to the room for more resting (I'm figuring that I've got a ten hour flight coming up and it's time to start getting my body's time clock out of wack again in preparation for time zone madness over the next few days). I've agreed to meet Michael again at 9pm tonight. Come dinner time, the guide book suggested an indian place not far from the hotel but a cab ride (six bux round trip) turns out to be awful looking so I return to the hotel for a relatively safe dinner as I'm not into trying another choice for another ten dollar cab ride.
And of course, by this time I've got this worked out -- Michael shows up at hour late again at 10pm. this time with another guy from the hotel and Michael's fiancee, Beatrice. We pile into the cab and off we go to hear modern Taarab music tonight performed by the Zanzibar Stars. Very opposite in ways to the Tanzanian music, Taarab is from Zanzibar. There are nine women, dressed in colorful though restrained clothes, sitting in chairs on the stage with microphones. one will take turns to stand in front of the stage and they all sing the chorus. after the song ends, no one applauds -- doesn't happen all night. Michael says this is just the way of Taarab music, but it's kind of odd. Also odd, is that only women dance on the dance floor. Michael tells me that the style of dancing to this is not for men. Again, I find this odd because it seems no different than regular dancing but perhaps I'm missing some nuance. Later, however, there are men on the dancefloor as well (but typically to Taarab the men and women are dancing with each other). I tell Michael from the moment he picks me up that I can't stay out late tonight. He won't hear of it. I really impress on him the fact that I have to be up at 6am tomorrow for the ride to the airport. He buys me a beer and I'm slowly drinking it and he's upset because he wants me to drink more like last night. I try to explain that (a) I'll fall asleep and (b) it's not nearly as hot tonight so I don't need to drink as much. Of course, tonight he and our other guests (we are also joined by Michael's sister) are all drinking coca colas. Anyways, it comes to 1am and I tell Michael I really have to go home now.
So another cab ride back to the hotel and then he and Beatrice return to the club for more music. I quickly pass out but keep the curtains open so I can wake up with the sun (in case my wake up call doesn't come). the next thing I know I'm awake, showered and heading downstairs for my ride to the airport. It's time to leave Africa and I'm kind of excited to come home but at the same time I already miss it. Everyone here asks when will I come back. I don't know if I'll ever. There's so much left of the world I haven't seen and god knows it's getting harder and harder as an American to go anywheres, but I'll be the ambassador of good will if I can. Nevertheless, there's so much more of Africa to see, but I would like to revisit Tanzania again, if only to see all the people I've met again and a chance to take a photo of the elusive black rhino.
So, Nev and I went out for a little birthday dinner last night (for his birthday) and now it's morning and we're just listening to the bbc news as Nev prepares for some meeting about a dance performance he may produce the music for. I may head to some museum for something to do, then something for dinner tonight and then off tomorrow to see Austin, my cats and my home.
Expect a ton of pictures to be posted in the next few weeks and see you sooner or later....
With love,
me... |
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1/23/2006 03:07:00 AM
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| Friday, January 20, 2006 |
| on the road again - alone again.... |
well, it's been awfully quiet around here since Neil left yesterday morning. I've found myself humming the theme song we created whilst on safari for Neil's cartoon series:
"It's Jungle Neil,
he's so real,
That Jungle Neil,
he's the real deal,
It's Jungle Neil.
He fights for the animals,
he eats with the cannibals.
It's Jungle Neil,
It's Jungle Neil."
Well, maybe it's not that catchy but after seven hours in a land rover, it's pretty funny, believe me.
I wound up taking a quiet night last yesterday and after spending the afternoon discussing with the furniture maker about making me a swahili bed to be shipped to the US (we'll see exactly what the shipping costs turn out to be before I spend any money), I went down to the Mercury Lounge -- named after Freddie Mercury of Queen who was born in Stonetown, Zanzibar. I bet you didn't know that, did you?
Anyways, I wound up being asked to join this couple at dinner, a guy and his girlfriend who says he owns a hotel in one of the towns south of Stonetown. He told me how when we was younger he used to work on a shark trawler and once had the rope pull him off the boat and the shark dragged him some distance before it finally died and he thought he was going to die that day. Not as death defying as my small plane adventure, but hey, I'm not going fishing for sharks any time soon, I think.
This morning I flew to Dar es Salaam, where I am writing to you from the Holiday Inn -- the nicest hotel in town. I asked the bellhop, Michael, when I checked in about the music scene and specifically this band the Africa Stars which were listed in the Rough Guide to go see at this one club. Saving me a lot of bother, he told me they recently switched to the Landmark Hotel and that also tomorrow night there's another club to see Taarab music that's really hot. He also offered to burn me some CD's of the local music for $3.50 a CD. I asked the reception people and they said he's a good, reliable guy, so he left me his phone number. After a mediocre burger for lunch (I'm starting to crave american food -- always a sign the vacation is winding down), and a dip in the very warm pool, I telephoned Michael and we've arranged for him to pick me up at 7pm and I'll buy him dinner in exchange for taking me out to this nightclub tonight.
That's about it for now....
Am missing the cats, home, and some cheese enchiladas. But after Dar I've got two days in London to chill (literally as I've brought no winter clothes) with Neville, Karl and the other assorted Brits before arriving back in the USA on the 24th....
Later....
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1/20/2006 08:31:00 AM
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| Thursday, January 19, 2006 |
| on the road again - underwater |
well, what can I say after that last post, right?
anyways, there seems to be a problem with blogger sending out these dispatches to those on the email list, but I've emailed them and am hoping to resolve the issue shortly.
after our Sir Paul adventure, we went to a local music place just to have a beer and come down from the experience. I couldn't stay up too late as I was going diving the next morning but we were both really wild eyed from our meeting.
so yesterday morning I arose with the sun and walked down the road to the dive shop. We were to have two divemasters, Sebastian's luscious girlfriend Caroline and a German named Chris. Chris is in his mid thirties and three weeks ago decided he'd had enough of being an engineer in Frankfurt, quit his job, and moved here to join Sebastian and Caroline at the dive shop. Good for him. Also on our wooden boat heading out to the reefs were Becca, a spanish teacher from Burlington VT who spent the last two years in the peace corps and is now travelling the world for six months (she's heading to Argentina and am hooking her up with Mirta & Miguel for a place to stay), three Italians who keep to themselves, and Daniel, another kraut.
Daniel and I have both not dived for some years so Chris gives us a short refresher course for the first five minutes of our first dive. That's fine. We head out then and see some beautiful fish, but miss the sea horses the rest of them saw. We break for lunch, wait an hour and back into the sea as a full group. I'm buddied with Becca this time as Daniel uses too much oxygen (he's a big guy) and has to go up earlier than the rest of us. We see a school of barracudas, starfish, and other good stuff.
Meanwhile, Neil has been walking 5km out of town and found himself in a fishing village where he took lots of pictures and then back to town to see the old slave market and food market.
Back on dry land (thankfully, this was the least hottest and least humid day of the entire trip!) I invite Becca to join us later for dinner. I need to rest after diving but hit the streets a bit for some street food and ice cream first -- diving also makes me hungry.
Later that night, we meet Becca at the Monsoon restaurant which is kind of a Morrocan style place where you sit on the floors on pillows and there's a trio playing Taarab music (the traditional music of Zanzibar -- there is also the new Taa-rap which we can't seem to find any to hear). Dinner is nice and Becca & Neil share teacher stories and then we bid her adieu and head for one last walk around the gardens where all the street vendors are as Neil is checking out in the morning. We get back to the hotel and the bootleg movie channel is playing Ecks vs. Sever which wasn't too bad and we pass out.
I've got one more day left here and will hit the slave market & food market later in the afternoon after Neil heads to the plane.
That's about it for now....
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1/19/2006 01:18:00 AM
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| Tuesday, January 17, 2006 |
| on the road again - birthday chinese food with sir paul |
okay, both neil and I are a little crazy at this very moment.
As I mentioned earlier I was feeling kind of sunstroked earlier today and while Neil was reading history books at the palace museum I was sleeping in my room. when Neil returned we decided a mellow Chinese dinner of soup and rice might be in order. We had a choice of two restaurants to go to but even then at the last minute we almost decided to go to a swahili restaurant instead. but we made our way to the Pagoda restaurant anyways.
we sat down to eat and there was a table of adults next to a table of kids -- a birthday party. they were a little noisy but we didn't care too much. we were both prety hungry by that point.
at this moment, I need to tell another story for a brief second....
when I was in London this summer there was some discussion between me and my friend Alia who was supposed to be going on the Paul McCartney tour to the US and would be in Dallas just around my birthday. I told Alia that it would sure make it an extra special birthday to just, you know, meet Sir Paul. She told me she didn't even think she would whilst on the tour. So it was forgotten.
Back to the present....
So here we are on my big birthday present to myself african adventure. We're eating our won ton soup and spicy chicken when suddenly -- FUCKIN PAUL MCCARTNEY AND HIS NEW WIFE WALK INTO THE FUCKIN RESTAURANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They sit at the table right behind us.
I'm whispering to Neil to try and see if it's really him or are we just hallucinating. He hears them order tofu -- it's got to be him.
PAUL MCCARTNEY IS SITTING IN A FUCKIN CHINESE RESTAURANT IN ZANZIBAR RIGHT FUCKIN NEXT TO US!!!!!!!
So, we decide to play it cool even though we're pissing in our pants. The kids start singing happy birthday to the little girl whose birthday it is, and as far as I'm concerned they're singing it for me.
We have to time this exactly right. We get our check in time before Sir Paul gets his food. We stand up and stand over him.
"We hate to intrude...." I start to say.
"But of course you do..." and then smiles wildly.
"Well, I just want to thank you for -- well -- everything...." I say.
"Thank you," he says very graciously. "Are you here on vacation?"
"Yes."
"This is my wife and we've been staying at Pemba Island and tonight's our last night. And you?"
Well, we start telling him a bit about our safari adventure. He says he and his wife haven't as they have a new baby but they want to in a few years from now. We tell him it was amazing.
I then stutter through the story about almost seeing him for my birthday this year. He said do I want him to sing for me now. I laugh a bit and he starts to sing Oh Sole Mio to us a little.
Their food arrives and its our cue to take off. We're too scared to ask for a photo. He shakes our hands again and we walk off as cooly as we can until we get down the stairs and out of the restaurant and start to scream at each other ---
OH MY GOD WE'RE IN FUCKIN ZANZIBAR AND FUCKIN PAUL MCCARTNEY JUST SHOOK OUR HAND AND SUNG OPERA TO US!!!!!!! AJHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, my only question -- does this mean we're going to die now?
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1/17/2006 12:26:00 PM
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| on the road again - allah, allah, almighty dollar.... |
here in zanzibar we have a hotel room with an actual television set. there's nothing more fun for a media junkie than to watch tv in another country. As we're here on the indian ocean, a sailboat trip from Iran and India as well as on the African Coast, you can imagine the diversity of television. we have lots of bad american television, too many rock video stations, and a plethora of bollywood movies. we also get great tv from south africa -- we've seen a documentary on soweto music from the 70's and last night we watched one on the early years of motown.
we are also catching up on the impending WWIII from cnn/bbc/skytv. last night we also caught the tail end of ocean's 11 (the new version) on this mystery channel which when it was over it went to the dvd menu and then to the dvd player menu and then shut down. also this morning there were cartoons on it that started to skip. we're convinced it's some guy in Oman with a bootleg satellite channel. we also like watching the arab weather channel with guys in turbans doing blue screen weather reports.
but the BEST thing we've seen and both Neil & I are becoming addicted to it, just out of sheer culture clash phenomena value is this channel that shows a guy singing the Koran whilst the stock market ticker runs underneath him. I can't think of another image -- albeit this one is mega surreal -- that is the perfect summation of where we are in the 21st century.
now on to the adventure...
yesterday we got up early and headed upstairs to our rooftop restaurant for some tea and cornflakes. then down the five stories to meet our driver Hassan who would be taking us on a spice tour. of all the tours that they offer here, this was the one we figured to do. We get out on the streets and suddenly the sky opens and monsoon like rains gush from the skies. we stop at some little restaurant where all the locals are eating to get some water and then head out of the city, only about 10 minutes drive, but there is no rain here. We are introduced to our young spice guide who takes us around this gov't owned farm where we see how cinnamon, cloves, cardamon, tumeric, ginger, lemongrass, vanilla, and other spices are grown. we get to sample bits all along the way and it's really quite fascinating. clove is the 2nd largest cash business behind tourism on Zanzibar. we also see various types of mangoes, papaya, pineapple, starfruit and such are grown. we are down in about 2 hours and then head back to town.
we take another shower and head out for a walk. I buy a couple of cookbooks and trinkets for some of you and then we settle into this gelato place that also serves italian food on the water to chill out a bit. we start talking to these two american girls. one has been living in tanzania and is working with street children. the other is working in nyc at abc news. we enjoy their company and wind up agreeing to meet them for dinner later that night. we take more showers and then join the girls for a lovely dinner -- I have barracuda in thai spice sauce. Karina, the one who is living here, will probably be working there in Africa for another two years or more. the stories she tells us of the street kids is quite heart wrenching -- and so is watching on cnn later little pakistani children shivering to death in the snowy mountains. you walk the sterets of zanzibar and are equally taken by the depth of poverty here, though it's much better than arusha. also, because zanzibar are free education through high school, as opposed to tanzania, which makes a difference though the socialist government they had for some years let their infrastructure mostly fall apart. meanwhile, any chance we're going to settle this Iran stand off without violence? probably not.
today, we headed out to view museums after the morning rainstorms, but I started to feel a little light headed from the heat and humidity and have left Neil to have his own adventure whilst I write this in the air conditioned internet cafe and then back to our air conditioned room.
I'm also thinking of possibly buying one of these swahili style mahogany beds for home. they're relatively inexpensive even with shipping costs and are really gorgeous and exotic. we'll see....
later kids...
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1/17/2006 05:26:00 AM
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| Sunday, January 15, 2006 |
| on the road again -- looking the devil in the eye... |
okay, finally we're done with the safari. definitely a once in a lifetime experience.
teisha took us to the airport this morning and it was a very sad farewell. As we've grown so fond of him, he has also to us. of course he'll never forget us, especially as we taught him his new favorite english expression "busting my balls." we pretty much figured out although he's been doing such tours for many years now, he rarely has had a back of knuckleheads like us who are not retirees, yuppie scum, nor nasty euros.
speaking of nasty euros, I believe I mentioned that the hotel was overrun with frogs and last night at dinner they were more pigs than frogs as they pushed and shoved us around the buffet table and we barely made it back to our table without wearing our dinners. there is this one massai who is paid by the hotel to be their entertainment director and he looks a bit like james earl jones and as opposed to all the massai you usually see -- very lanky, this guy is huge. all from eating at the hotel. he had been trying to hustle us to go on this nature walk at dawn and last night was trying to get us to join the other touristas as they do a little music and entertainment show which struck us as seriously -- watching the cute natives. not for us.
anyways, the point of this post is that I am not a fan of small planes. Neil, however, likes the thrill of them. Me, nope. I like big planes. 747's, baby.
So Teisha hangs out with us at the airstrip in the serengeti until our plane arrives. it's a small twin prop thing with room for about 15 people. As the plane took off, I was white knuckling it and trying not to do anything but read the magazine provided which was pretty painful in itself as it was some written for white folks who live in Kenya. Articles about the cute summer camp for the rich white kids and followed by another article about how one woman took her kids to spend the day with homeless street kids who were all high on sniffing glue. lovely. meanwhile, Neil keeps taking photos out the window as the plane bounces and weaves its way first to Lake Manyera and down and then up again and down again to Arusha. He keeps trying to show me the photos, and I'm ready to toss the camera out the airplane. We finally arrive in Arusha and deplane to get on another plane to Zanzibar. Meanwhile, I introduced myself to our first pilot after the plane landed and said I was a friend of Damien's. He asked me to pass along a hello.
As we wait in the terminal, there is a couple of ear doctors on their honeymoon from France. The groom lived in the US as an exchange student in Wisconsin when he was in high school and speaks good English. He doesn't like small planes either. A pilot comes over and I also introduce myself as a friend of Damien's (he used to fly this airline, see?). This guy, Mohammed, half-italian/half-indian, is very excited to hear this as Damien taught him to fly these planes. He disappears to get ready.
Just then everyone in the airport goes racing down the road and Neil stays with the bags and we see firetrucks and ambulances arrive. It seems the plane we were supposed to take to Zanzibar had landing gear problems and had been stuck in the air for 2 hours until another plane could pass near it to see if the landing gear was working properly, as the light indicator wasn't saying so. it wasn't all the way down but enough to land somewhat safely. lovely. Those passengers then join us as we are all hustled on to the next plane.
As I start to join Neil getting on the plane, I am told by the attendant -- "no, no, sir. this way." And next thing I know I'm escorted to join Mohammed at the front of the Cessna, in the co-pilot seat.
Okay, this is that moment when you have to look the devil in the eye, friends.
I strap myself in, turn back to see Neil giggling to himself. And we take off.
Off we go, into the wild blue yonder....
Well, I can't whimp out here. I'm stuck. But surprisingly, being seated in this position is a hell of lot less scary. At least I can read all the controls. Mohammed explains to me how all this works and we're having a great time as he switches the thing to auto pilot and he tells me about being born in Prague, moving here when he was four, stories about his father the doctor, going to flight school in florida, and on. The best story is that he got married to a canadian girl who was on safari who fell in love with him, moved here and started working for the UN Rwanda Tribunal (yes, he knew the woman we met our first night at Stiggy's). Anyways, he took her on a plane ride and flipped the plane upside down in the air and asked her then to marry him. She said she would if he turned the plane right side up. they said their vows on the top of mount kilimanjaro. nice story.
So, the hour in the air ticked by quickly. -- ah, there is one other story. halfway we get a radio call from another pilot, a girl, who talks to Mohammed a few minutes and tells us she's was really got very drunk the other night but is feeling better today. I'm glad we flew with Mohammed is all I'll say. We land and leave the devil behind in the air.
Zanzibar is miles away, not just in physical distance but also every way else from where we've been. It's like being in Morocco. It's all very north african looking and is a mostly muslim. Much of the city was built in the mid 1800's and many of the grander buildings were built by a brit who was poo-pooed by many of the other brits living there at the time as "having gone native" (so says the guide book).
So, we check into our hotel which is an old arab trader's mansion and our room is quite spectacular though the view from the window reminds us we're in a third world country. We head out to take a quick walk around as it's already after 4pm and it's sweltering hot, at least 90-something with major humidity.
I sign up at a dive shop to go on a dive on wednesday (not Neil, he'll go dolphin viewing on his own) and the guy at the shop a frenchie named Sebastian gives us a good tip for a restaurant around the block where I have an amazing piece of snapper in orange/ginger sauce.
Now we're here at the internet cafe and tonight we 're off later for drinks and fun.
remember -- don't look away when the devil looks your way, friends....
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1/15/2006 09:22:00 AM
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| Friday, January 13, 2006 |
| on the road again -- poaching |
well, I've figured out a way to break through the system here at the hotel's computer so I don't have to pay their exhorbitant rates of 5 bux for 15 minutes. I don't feel too bad about this the hotel chain is owned by rich frenchies out of africa.
but back to africa....
in america, as in most places I've been to, when you see a wild animal, it typically runs as quickly from you as possible, perhaps just pausing to check you out for a moment. with good reason, of course. but here, they have been so used to having jeeps stop or simply pass by that they don't care. you are driving down a road (and I mean simply a dirt road -- and a very dusty dirt road as there wasn't rain for months here, though in the last three days there has been lots of rain).
oops, just busted by one of the staff, I have fifteen minutes to go...
okay, so you're driving down the road past zebras, gazelles, giraffes, elephants, and hyenas and they simply look you right in the eye and it's no big deal to them. "hey, jeffrey, how's the air up there?" but you know full well that that the cute hyena looking at you in the eye has the sharpest and toughest teeth in the animal kingdom and could rip you apart in three seconds in a fair fight.
now, I will say this -- the lions do not sleep at night. while we were camping out there in the middle of the plains -- and here's the thing, the serengeti seems to go on for about a thousand miles in any direction you look -- you can hear all sorts of animals at night. the other night, in fact, teisha says he didn't sleep at all because he was worried that the lion we all heard roaring as a little too close to the camp for his comfort. I'm glad he didn't share that with us until the next morning.
mind you there are poachers. (we have a pictutre of ourselves posing with a ranger with a rifle). yes, it seems that there are still middle-aged beverly hills housewives who need to justify their existance with a leopard skin coat or some japanese guy needs the ground up teeth of some tiger for his sexual prowess, but the animals are pretty cool about you being there. of course -- never get out of the jeep. never.
you have to remember also that compulsory education in tanzania is only up to the 7th grade and while the average tanzanian speaks swahili quite fluently, their english is about equal to that of say, an american high school graduate (that's a joke on the american public school system, friends not on the africans). but their undertanding of the world situation, their news intake is very minimal and it can be very tough to hear say the bartender at the hotel bar tell me how wonderful america is and how much we help people around the world and know full well that we spend 100 times more on our war in iraq than than the war on aids and if we could only cut that difference in half, even only 50x, we could probably save half the lives of those dying here every day (in south africa alone its 1000 per day). or that we are a rich country (federal deficits will reach 5.5 trillion -- on a modest number crunch - by 2013).
but enough of the bad stuff, it's gorgeous here and the sun is up and we're off for our last day on safari... later....
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1/13/2006 10:31:00 PM
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| on the road again - addendum - americanos |
I completely forgot to log in our experience with the ugly americans. we really haven't seen many, except seniors and some yuppie scum, but today while watching the cheetahs, there was a group of about five jeeps all of us watching the event. one had an american couple. we are all very silent to watch, yes? the american woman is talking like she's in her living room -- "oh, look there's a bird up there!" to another jeep "are you a professional photographer, that's a big lens!" all this with a thick east coast accent...
we're all going "shush!"but they aren't responding. finally, I turn and say "could you please just keep it down a bit..." she looks like she had no idea anyone else was there. god bless america, folks...
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1/13/2006 09:55:00 AM
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| on the road again - bad things come in threes |
catch up time...
after the last post from ngronogoro, went to the bar while neil was still in the room and met a couple from london on their honeymoon. when neil joined us, we all went to dinner together and had a very nice time. afterwards, neil bailed and went back to the room and I hung out and drank with them. we met three people from the states -- two from ann arbor and one from nyc. they were mildly interesting, but then a group of marines joined us. they are reserves and stationed in somalia doing humanitarian aid. they said we aren't doing anything to help anyone there and are pretty disgusted with the whole thing, as well as the war in iraq. one guy was from new orleans and we hit it off real good and his wife works for non profits and is involved in the reconstruction now. the other guy used to work at the metropolitan museum of art in new york and lives in jersey. they were great and not like any marines I'd ever met before. I hope to stay in touch with them in the future.
the next day, we hit the bumps.
first, after visiting the gourge and learning about the leakeys, neil cracked his skull open getting back into the jeep and about 2 cups of blood poured out. I jumped to get my medical kit (big shout out to mark birnbaum for sending it to me as a going away gift!!!) and used all my dr. mengele home medical course skills to patch up the gash which was about an inch long. with that madness taken care of, we drove on towards the serengeti. about two miles from the entrance gate, we got a flat tire. we spent half an hour getting that fixed and moved on. we continued into the serengeti after a box lunch stop and had a great adventure touring the plains. we saw hippos and more zebras, elephants, lots of hyenas, and such.
sunset was hitting and tiesha headed us to the mobile camp where we were to spend the next two nights. we drove around for a while and we couldn't find it (yes, it's mobile so they move it from place to place). we still couldn't find it. I explained to tiesha that bad things happen in threes and this is the third thing. we took off, trying to beat the last of the sun to the main ranger station and nobody there seemed to know, except one guy. but he wasn't there. he eventually arrived and led us to our camp. you don't want to be out there driving around in the dark. there are no road signs and no lights. there are hungry lions and leopards though. we quickly settled in to our tent. we were the only guests there. after dinner, we both drank a bunch and went to pass out.
as we did, the rain started to pour. and I mean pour. if you've ever camped in a rain storm, you know what we've been through. the tent rocked and rain pelleted it all night long with wind, rain, thunder, lightening. Neil actually passed out, but even with ambien, I never got to sleep. it was horrible. but dawn finally came and it was a beautiful day.
nevertheless, I decided to pass on going out for the morning and instead slept and just chilled at the campsite. also, I think eating so much food (three or four course meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner) was making me ill and not able to sleep well.
of course, neil and teisha come back and they saw all the lions and leopards close up that had been eluding us for days. thankfully neil got pictures. we went back out after lunch, but there were no lions and leopards. well, actually, we saw some female lions, but I haven't seen any male ones yet.
today, we headed out of the camp to the fancy serena lodge and along the way we spotted a leopard sleeping in a tree, and watched a family of cheetahs kill a baby gazelle. lots of pictures of that.
anyways, I think that's all caught up. tomorrow is our last safari day and then off to zanzibar!
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1/13/2006 09:35:00 AM
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| on the road again - reflections |
sorry, we've been out camping in the serengeti for two days with no electricity, much the less internet access. have lots to catch up again now that we're at a fancy hotel again, but it's also costing a fortune again, but I'll try to get this all out.
first off, it was 500 feet not 900 miles. I was typing fast the other day for the other post.
now, just stuff that's on our minds.
a little rant here about my favorite subject -- religion. our driver, tiesha, is really a great guy. but here we are literally at the place where civilization started. we saw at the oldavai gorge where the leakeys discovered the first hominids. when I mentioned to tiesha that the monkeys we saw were our cousins. he laughed and said you don't believe that? yes, well, he's a good christian. the christian missionaries have done a great job on him and here at this amazing and important spot, the guy who lives here doesn't believe in evolution. what the fuck is up with that?
and to add a complete level of absurdity to the whole situation.... as I was sitting in the bar at the hotel the other day, there was a tv set on in the corner. what was on? the flintstones! and it was an episode in which Fred plays Santa Claus. cavemen celebrating christmas!
onward -- there was a magazine I was reading, a local weekly, in Arusha. they were talking about a performance that was put together by some locals for their village to deal with what they said were issues of importance. they performed these skits for the villagers to teach them about water cleanliness, food safety, and their biggest problem (wait a moment). yes, it seems they have to remind people not to piss and shit upstream in the river from where they get their drinking water. oh, god.
but the biggest problem -- and here is where we depart from the p.c. world that we westerners live in -- laziness. the article described it as almost a pandemic in tanzania. I had this self-reflective cringe because I think if there's one word you could never use to describe a black person in america, it's got to be the word lazy, don't you think? I wasn't sure how to react to reading that and am still wondering if this is a "real# problem or it's some leftover crap from colonial days. I don't know.
but speaking of stereotypes, let's talk about the tourists here.
when you're out on safari, you see other jeeps filled with other tourists. we all pile around a particular place on the road to watch the cheetahs or what have you. typically, the brits and aussies all nod when you nod or say hello to them. the few indians we've seen do the same. the rest of the euros all don't even want to acknowledge your presence. they don't even seem to be having a good time from their dour expressions. the japanese are all piled into minivans and wear face masks. what really blows us away is to see people with their children. I can't imagine how they survive that -- the parents I mean. we are in the jeeps for 10 hours a day. just breaking for a box lunch. of course, the upper crust tourists are just out for an hour a day and spend their time in the hotels. the thing of it is that here we are at this incredible place and you'd think the people around us would feel the sense of excitement that we do. but they are just there to take photos and not get any of the larger picture.
sadly, many of the africans we've talked to don't get it either. a typical exchange has been that I say that there is a book of the 30 places everyone should visit in a lifetime and that the serengeti and ngorngoro is on that list and they look at you like you're kidding and actually laugh, thinking you must be joking. when you tell them you're serious, they just don't get it.
anyways, got to move on, next post....
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1/13/2006 09:08:00 AM
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| Tuesday, January 10, 2006 |
| on the road again - safari time |
I have 22 minutes to write this as it's costing me 10 bux, but here we go...
okay, they say going on safari is a crap shoot. you can go 3 days and see all the animals you want or 10 days and not see jack shit.
day one was amazing....
we head out, stopping as we pass a few towns to grab my hair salon painting photos and head into the Tarangire Nat'l Park. We see hundreds of zebras, elephants, giraffe, wildebeasts and other goodies. at one point, we are standing up in our jeep which has an open thing on the top for us to look out from and we turn a corner and literally an elephant is 6 feet from us. a huge one with her baby. it's a bit daunting but amazing. we drive around the park for about four hours and thank god I brought one of those donuts to sit on, though we spend a lot of time standing as the jeep rocks back and forth. it's total daktari land.
we stay the night at the tarangire river camp which is absolutely beautiful. huge tents built inside these hut structures. If you've never slept inside a bed covered with mosquito netting, it's much like visiting I dream of jeanie's lamp, I think. We're the only people there except for a seniors group from the US. one lady in the morning chats us up and she's from freeport, long island.
I don't sleep well, but still enough to get up and go the next morning.
we head out to the ngorongoro crater. 900 miles straight downhill. to where man began or something like that. we see lions, cheetah, more zebras, chimps, baboons, hippos, flamingos and more. we can't find any rhino though.
this is really an amazing journey is all I have to say here. there's not much more to say other than I can't wait for you to see the pictures. I have a picture of a giraffe looking right at me. and baby elephants. and the cheetah was amazing.
we stopped at one point to get a picture of me with an elephant in the background and this monkey jumps in our jeep and we have to get him out. eeek.
neil has become fascinated with a chain of stores called "the house of lubricants" and I'm gonna get him a shirt that says "neil's house of lubricants."
okay, we're staying in one of the 500 best hotels in the world according to travel & leisure magazine tonight (the serena ngorongoro lodge). neil is pulling his pud, I mean writing in his journal, and I'm off to drink myself silly tonight....
later....
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1/10/2006 10:14:00 AM
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| Sunday, January 08, 2006 |
| on the road again - jambo!!! |
okay, so we head out with Teisha (who will be our driver for the whole trip -- nice guy, not so great english). We have a two hour drive and we pass lots of hair salon paintings which I explain to Teisha I want to photograph. he's not sure he gets it, but eventually starts to spot them for me and we get some on the way there and back.
We pass lots of people in their sunday bests on their way to and from church. They all wave at us and yell Jambo!!! We do the same back.
We get to Marangu and are met by Faustin, our tour guide. He is, like Teisha, of the Chagga tribe who have lived here since forever. Poor Faustin got the call to guide us just as he's getting out of church and is dressed all in black. It's too fuckin' hot for that. We negotiate a rate -- $25 for each of us. And off we go. We hike around the village, see coffee plants, corn, and such. there's been little rain here for a while. everything is dusty and dry. we visit a traditional hut where a family still lives. we go inside the hut and there's cows and goats and the old people. we leave the hut and are met by the grandchildren. we all get photos with the whole family. suddenly, two teenage granddaughters appear and start whispering to me "give me some money" over and over again. Nope. Sorry.
Our next stop is down to a gorgeous waterfall where we cool off for a moment and then head back up to meet Teisha and ride to the park at the base of Kilimanjaro for our picnic lunch. Teisha and Faustin abandon us and we are inundated with kids hawking us stuff while we eat. I give them half my lunch as it's alot of food.
Back on the road Faustin takes us to a blacksmith shop where we watch a traditional way of making tools and they try to sell us these Massai spears -- we try to explain we would not get near an airplane security checkpoint with them. Next we are taken to an underground shelter used by the Chagga back in the day when they fought the Massai, not make spears for them. We head down this flight of stairs, after a door is unlocked and one guy with a flashlight leads us into this tunnel. we have to climb on our hands and knees. my claustraphobia is kicking in but sometimes you have to look the devil in the eye. Neil, of course, can barely sit in the tiny room and instead of pressing on, we decide to turn around after the first room. plus I keep thinking of those miners back in america.
We depart the village after a misunderstanding that we needed also to tip Faustin $10 a piece and with that settled, we head on the road back -- lots of carbon monoxide from trucks and busses in front of us as well as dust leaves us both a bit dopey. I keep asking Teisha to pull over so I can grab snaps of the hair salon portraits. Poor neil can't even remember where we are at some point. We're both feeling a bit poisoned and ill by the time we get back. Nevertheless, a quick shower, a two hour nap, and indian food take care of all that and here I am writing.
Tomorrow we head out to safari for eight days.
jambo!!
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1/08/2006 02:23:00 PM
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| on the road again -- gimme some money |
well, Neil & I are finally getting adjusted to the time zone, thanks to the magic of ambien.
addendum to the last post -- also at Stiggy's that night, Neil had met these people on his plane ride who live there, Sarah and her husband Jacques. We run into them there as well and of course they know the people we're with and it was all one big happy time. Sarah and her husband are thinking of meeting us for dinner on sunday and also recommend other places for us to eat. I should also mention that Thorston's son Gabe was only 10.
so, now we're on our first "day of leisure" to acclimate ourselves to the dark continent. Neil & I head into town and while we've been warned about all of this, actually being in the middle of it is another experience. What I'm talking about is people constantly wanting to say hello to you (or as they say - jambo!). Anyways, the problem is that while maybe 1/4 of the people really do just want to make some contact with the strange white devils, the rest of them want to sell you something -- either their services (let me show you around) or a batik painting they claim to have made themselves (but meanwhile, they are all exactly alike and obviously are done in some sort of factory set up). To give you the best understanding of what this experience is like, try to imagine yourself to be the hot chick at a party of mostly single guys. That's me and Neil -- the hot chicks. We are hit on with every line in the book.
We stop by at Roy's Safaris where I wrote the previous missive. The manager is a big black man with a gap toothed smile that would make David Letterman envious. His name is Theofilo. He sits us down and goes over the itinerary with us. We decide instead of actually going to Kilimanjaro on Sunday, there is a nice hiking tour we can do of a small village named Marangu. Just going to Kilimanjaro costs 60 bux, even if you don't want to climb it. That seems like a rip off considering also that it's deep under a cloud cover and you can't see the top from the ground anyways. And I already have pictures of the remaining snows I took from the plane, the top of the mountain poking out over the clouds. So there. While Neil is emailing I talk with Theofilo and we talk about the Rwanda mess and war and he says he cannot understand why anyone would knowingly kill another person. I suggest that to hate someone else you have to first hate yourself. His eyes widen and he hugs me because he has never heard that before and it makes sense to him. He also then mentions that we're living in end times. You know, as much as I detest the Christian notion of it, I do concur, I suppose.
This leads me to mention that Tanzania is mostly a christian country with smatterings of muslim. It has also been one of more stable governments in Africa. Their first president - who united Tanganyika and Zanzibar into Tanzania -- Nyere, was also a promoter of pan-africanism. Their new prime minister is from Arusha, and everyone seems very excited about him bringing economic success to the country.
So we depart Roy's and head into Arusha where we are inundated with people offering us stuff. We can't shake them for a while but eventually we push our way outside the downtown area and then circle back. It's a nice town but poor. there also seems to be no restrictions on how much pollution you pump out of your car which is thick and black smoke for the most part.
I discover a new obsession for me. Portraits painted outside hair salons. They are totally folk art and look exactly like the kind of paintings you see outside hair salons in the deep south (I guess no surprise there). But they are really cool and I decide to photograph as many of them as I can.
We go to a place called Jambo's for lunch, again fighting through guys trying to sell us stuff. They make good stir fry meals and already I'm feeling like I'm not going to lose much weight here unless I get diahrrea somehow (please, no!). Anyways, after lunch we head back to the hotel to sit by the pool.
Speaking of hot chicks, there are two young german babes and the other people around the pool all seem to have their beach chairs situated for all the men (all ages, all ethnics) for maximum viewing of them. We find similar appropriate spots, kick back and read. I've brought this book -- the No.1 Woman's Detective Agency -- a mystery novel of a woman detective in Botswana, which seemed appropriate reading for this trip. Suddenly, we hear loud brass band music from the streets. None of the other tourists seem at all interested in what that's all about. But me, well, one of my main lessons in life I now impart to you is -- always follow the music.
So we jump up and head out and around to the street where I learn through a local (who eventually tries to sell me some batik paintings which I buy one because he was so informative about what we were seeing) is a wedding. What happens is that on saturday people get married. often up to 20 couples. and then they make their way with their wedding parties to this roundabout just outside the hotel where there is some well tended grass and a statue. the band plays, people dance and then they move on and the next brass band, wedding party shows up. This will go on all afternoon. I take a bunch of photos and even dance a little (hey, it's a wedding!). but not one other tourist seems to be interested in this. later, a guy from canada I talk to asks what was all that music about. remember friends -- always follow the music.
everyone leaves the pool area when the german babes do and we head up to our rooms to figure out dinner plans. we decide to go to a place Sarah recommended called Massai Camp. It's another hotel/restaurant place that many local go to. We head over there (a three dollar cab ride for three blocks). And I've got to order the bbq pulled pork sandwich which is amazingly good. I share it and the fries with several dogs that seem to hang out in the place. Neil has some pasta and we wind up talking to a trio of Israelis who are on vacation there too. They all met in the army (one girl, two guys) and now all work for the same hi tech company. the music is really loud there but we manage to maintain some kind of conversation. 11pm hits again and neil and I have to go pass out again. that night neither of us can sleep and we pop ambien and off we go to snooze land.
8:30 am comes much too quickly, but we jump into the showers (not together) and then head to breakfast and off on our Marangu adventure.... |
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1/08/2006 01:48:00 PM
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| Saturday, January 07, 2006 |
| on the road again - here we are.... |
well, after emailing the last missive I switched terminals and went to the BA executive club where they had a lot better services. free wine and booze, sandwiches and more....
It finally came time to get on the plane and I was very pleased to be flying BA now and not AA. The BA biz class has those seats that recline all the way down into a bed. My seat was facing backwards which I've never had the experience of flying backwards before. Nothing strange, just different. But the downside was there was a family of four children that pretty much took over the front of the plane and another couple with another small son. The larger family I made friends with. He, Thorston and his wife Alicia, are on their way to spend 3 years in Tanzania. He works for the EU Commission and is there to build a port in Zanzibar. The couple met in Guyana when he was stationed there. She's part Indian/Black/Scottish and they are both gorgeous looking people with gorgeous looking children. Their second eldest son, Gabe, became my buddy and since the kids were not planning on doing much sleeping all night long (they had flown in from NYC). He wound up teaching me some skiing game on his playstation. But I did get to sleep finally. I figured that taking these cat naps would confuse my body enough that when I awoke in Tanzania and it was morning -- and it actually worked -- it seemed to make sense that it was morning.
I now had a four hour wait at Dar airport. The woman at the passport control was staring at my visa stamped in my passport and said I had no visa. I said look at the page and she did and then she stamped it and passed me through. Exiting the airport I was hit with a sweltering heat and humidity and my hair went soaking wet in about 30 seconds. I went to the Flamingo Cantina at the airport to wait for Neil to join me. The waitress wasn't too happy that I only wanted to drink Diet Pepsis and wasn't at all hungry. Soon I was joined by another couple I'd seen on the plane -- Joe & Claire. I introduced myself and we had a great time for the next three hours. Joe is an airplane mechanic and flies really cheap, his fiancee Claire works in the british version of child protection services. They both live on the Isle of Mann. They flew here to climb Kilimanjaro. Joe looks like he could have played a part of one of the bad guys in Lock, Stock & 2 smoking Barrells. compact sized with bald head (and a big scar right at the top), big arms and a gruff looking face which hides how actually sweet he is. Claire is also a sweetheart, and wants to become a psycho therapist and open her own practice. He's 37, she's 25.
Eventually, I head downstairs again and there's Neil in line. Neil is easy to find in a crowd because he is 6'6". Neil informs Joe & Claire that 3 Americans just died yesterday climbing Kilimanjaro. They turn a bit white. We bid them adieu and get on our plane. There is almost no a/c on the plane and it is filled to the brim. It's a twin propellor job and I have to remind myself that they fly this route twice a day and move large groups of tourists around and I won't die. I don't.
We arrive at the Kilimanjaro airport and meet our driver Teisha. He will be transporting us throughout the safari. We get to the hotel, check in, and head to the pool. Unfortunately, the weather was quite cool in Arusha that day and the pool is even colder. I head back up for a shower instead.
We rest a few moments and head to Stiggy's a local expat hangout recommended by Damien. Stiggy short for Stigwood, is actually Robert Stigwood's cousin or something. I am to introduce myself to Stiggy as a friend of Damien (FOD). He's not there yet, as its friday and the Hash House Hussiers or something like that are doing their weekly run and drinking game and will be arriving shortly. We sit down next to two women -- Debbie and Renata. Debbie is about my age and is a research analyst for the Rwanda tribunals working for the UN. Her husband Drew is an UN attorney for the tribunals. They've lived there for five years. Drew is not there tonight. Renata is Debbie's son's Pat (?) girlfriend from Brazil. Her son (they are both from Canada) is 24 and breaking into tv commmercial directing in NYC. Renata also lives in NYC and is a stylist for magazine shoots.
Anyways, we all have a fabulous evening talking and eating pizza (the pizza is good in Tanzania -- part of my quest to eat pizza in every country of the world) and guacamole & chips. We drink Kilmanjaro beer and Safari brand Beer. Stiggy joins us and we all talk about the evil George Bush and laugh alot until my brain suddenly calls it quits. I cannot think, I cannot keep my eyes open, I can't hear what people are saying. If I can hear them I can't process the words. It's 11pm and we've been there for five hours and I have to pass out. We are told not to walk the two blocks back to the hotel as we will probably be mugged. We spend 2 bux on a cab ride, a buck a block. Back at the hotel we pass out and now today we are headed into town for our "day of leisure".
Over and out.... |
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1/07/2006 01:46:00 AM
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| Thursday, January 05, 2006 |
| on the road again - airport nothingness |
well, I'm off and running. nothing really to report other than I'm halfway there. Wasting seven hours here at Heathrow in the american airlines admiral's lounge. Since I scored my seat with mileage I'm flying biz class which gives me free admit to the lounges. I think they should give me an admiral's cap when I enter, but they don't seem to have any.
So I'm stuck here, nowhere to go. Let us give a quick run through of the lounges I've been to so far on this trip. The one in Austin, well, was the nicest so far I have to say. They have artwork by Nic Nicosia and Lance Lechter (both Texas artists) which is a hell of lot nicer than the used holiday inn prints hanging on the walls here at Heathrow. Chicago's was kind of cool with a bit of an art deco motif. Both in Austin & Chicago I received free cocktail tickets which was cool. Heathrow, they all seem a bit tired to work here, the place is a bit run down and unfriendly, but the drinks are free though. However, it's morning to me and so I'm not up for alcohol quite yet.
The flight to Chicago was nice, sat next to a guy who works for AMD on his way to the CES show in Vegas (poor guy, the flight is direct but goes austin/chicago/vegas - ugh). My second leg was also uneventful. Much nicer than my last trip overseas which was full of stormy weather. My seat mate was a non-talkative guy from Arizona on his way to Kuwait. You figure people going to Kuwait are either involved in oil or guns, so I left him alone. I took an ambien and slept somewhat fitfully but seriously the only advantage of being in biz class on this leg was more leg room. In Chicago airport I went to Wolfgang Puck's restaurant which was really good - pasta alfredo with grilled chicken. on the plane, I passed on dinner but took them up on a nice free glass of port to help me sleep.
So now in Heathrow, found a bagel sandwich place (bagels in england!?!) -- you know I remember once on Candid Camera where they went and asked people in the midwest where they could find a bagel and they would answer things like 'try a hardware store' which got a big laugh with the new york television audience. not anymore. we live in a global community, whether people in kansas care of not, where you can get a tikki masala chicken sandwich on an onion bagel with italian mozzarella.
I chatted up a buxom (god, I love that word) greek gal in the lounge who was on her way to ny & miami. She deals in renting out private yachts to people who want to go on a cruise of the Aegean. She explained that a smaller yacht, 75 foot, might rent for about $5k a day but the bigger boats can run to $120k per day which people typically rent for a week or more. I think she was sent to prepare me for the culture shock of tomorrow waking up in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Okay, can't think of anything else to write now, but don't know when I'll find another computer and where. Five hours to go before I get back on a plane.... |
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1/05/2006 07:46:00 AM
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| Monday, January 02, 2006 |
| on the road again -- the road to Zanzibar.... |
For those of you who do not get my regular boring missives and rants, if you’d like to stay up on my African Adventure, you can check out my blog at www.losfuzzydice.com. No promises of how regular updates will come, but supposedly some of the hotels in the main towns have the internet connections.
Onward.
For the cabal of uninitiated (yes, I’ve been talking about this for six months – it takes that long in advance to plan it) I’m heading to Tanzania for a photo safari. As of 3:30pm on the 4th, I will submit myself to the twilight zone known as the airport system for a 48 hour period. I will leave Austin, on to Chicago, on to London - for a seven hour wait, to Dar Es Salaam - for a four hour wait, meet up with Neil there, and then finally arrive at Kilimanjaro airport at about 3:30pm on the 6th.
I repeat – I’m going on a photo safari. I will not have to dress in a loin cloth and wrastle any animals with simply a knife for my supper. Though I understand that loin cloths are quite comfortable and that Brad Pitt recently was caught by paparazzi wearing one at the Cannes Film Festival this year.
We will pass out at our hotel in Arusha for a period of time, then awaken and explore. We have a one day trip to Mount Kilimanjaro where we will see the Hemingway-famous snows, which according to science (you know, those people who believe in evolution?!) will be gone in about 5-10 years thanks to global something-or-other. No worries, we’ll be in an air-conditioned SUV, I’m sure, to see it now and report back to you.
Then we spend eight days on safari, visiting the Tarangire National Park, the Ngorongoro Crater, a side trip to visit a Maasai village, and the Serengeti Plain. Then we fly to the exotic island of Zanzibar where we’ll be taking in the sun, grilled fish, and some diving.
Then Neil flies back, then I fly to Dar Es Salaam for two days, then to London for two days, then to home.
We are terribly indebted to my friend Erica’s brother Damien, who was a bush pilot and married a girl from Tanzania and helped plan a lot of our trip. Hopefully, I will be meeting some of his in-laws when there.
I am also hoping to dive in to some East African music.
I am also terribly afraid of large animals, the dark, and ebola. But, let’s not dwell on such matters...
Lots of advice from people about this trip:
1. I was told from one friend who has recently succumbed to the Tarzan box
set that the natives there prefer to be referred to as "boy" and we should
expect to lose at least 8 or 10 of these natives whilst on our
safari.
2. I was told from someone else that I shouldn’t eat zebra
because I will smell like one for several days and attract hungry
lions.
3. I was told, according to the program Daktari, that wild animals
don’t like the taste of a white man, as they never seemed to be killed or
mauled – unless they are evil in which case wild animals have a keen sense of
detection of and then exact "poetic" justice upon the "bad" white man.
I have one simple rule in life – Never get off the boat. Kurtz got off the boat. He got off the whole damn program.
While, yes, in this case, the boat is a metaphor for a jeep, nevertheless, just go with me on this.
I’m just glad I’ve bought the quick-drying pants and quick-drying underpants, because the first time a fuckin’ rhino comes charging at our jeep....
Anyways, stay tuned. I’m sure they’ll be chills and spills to come....
gee, is this going to be fun or what?!? |
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1/02/2006 10:53:00 PM
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| Sunday, January 01, 2006 |
| the same procedure as every year... |
The Mystery of Dinner for One
How an obscure British skit has become Germany's most popular New Year's tradition.
By Jude Stewart
Posted Friday, Dec. 30, 2005, at 12:13 PM ET
http://www.slate.com/id/2133551/?nav=ais
Every New Year's Eve, half of all Germans plunk down in front of their televisions to watch a 1963 English comedy sketch called Dinner for One. Walk into any bar in Bavaria and shout the film's refrain: "The same procedure as last year, madam?" The whole crowd will shout back in automatic, if stilted, English: "The same procedure as every year, James." Even though Dinner for One is, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most frequently repeated TV program ever, it has never been aired in the United Kingdom or the United States, and most of the English-speaking world is ignorant of its existence. When Der Spiegel probed the mystery last New Year's, it found that the BBC had not only never contemplated broadcasting this veddy British nugget in the United Kingdom, the BBC's spokesperson had never even heard of it.
Dinner for One, also known as Der 90 Geburtstag (The 90th Birthday), has rattled around the cabaret circuit for decades. Written by British author Lauri Wylie in the 1920s, it presents a morbidly funny story in miniature—(just 11 minutes on TV): Elderly Miss Sophie throws her birthday party every year, setting the table for her friends Sir Toby, Mr. Pommeroy, Mr. Winterbottom, and Adm. von Schneider, while conveniently ignoring the fact that they've all been dead for a quarter-century. (You can watch all of Dinner for One here or read the English script here.) Her butler James manfully takes up the slack by playacting all of them. He serves both drinks and food while quaffing toasts on behalf of each "guest," a bevy of soused British noblemen and von Schneider, who toasts Miss Sophie with a heel-click and a throaty "Skål!" (Watch a sample of Mr. Winterbottom's patois here.) James waddles to and fro, trips repeatedly over the head of a tiger-pelt rug, declaims each guest's pleasantries boozily, spray-fires the table with mispoured drinks, and downs a little water from a flower vase. Each course begins with the signature refrain: "The same procedure as last year, madam?" "The same procedure as every year, James." The sketch ends with James' final "procedure": bedding the old lady himself.
In 1962, German entertainer Peter Frankenfeld stumbled on Dinner for One in Blackpool's seaside circuit. Frankenfeld was so charmed that he invited actors Freddie Frinton and May Warden to perform the sketch on his live TV show Guten Abend, Peter Frankenfeld. The now-classic black-and-white recording dates from a 1963 live performance in Hamburg's Theater am Besenbinderhof. (So deep runs the love for this broadcast that last year Frankfurter Rundschau interviewed a woman whose piercing laugh from the sidelines has achieved its own cult status.) Audiences clamored for repeats, and the skit fit nicely as a time-filler between larger broadcasts, so the German network Norddeutscher Rundfunk and its affiliates ran the snippet repeatedly in the 1960s, even reaching audiences behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. The skit settled into its current New Year's Eve slot in 1972.
The show's popularity spread to Scandinavia, where it is typically watched on December 23, as well as Switzerland, Austria, South Africa, Australia, and Latvia. The show has been broadcast more than 230 times. You can watch it dubbed in Plattdeutsch, a northern German dialect (with or without a German introduction), ponder its scholarly depths in a Latin translation, take in live Dinner for One supper theater, cook up Miss Sophie's traditional meal, or just drink briskly along with the actors, and the rest of northern Europe. There are many parodies as well: My favorite is the childrens' public TV station KI.KA's Dinner für Brot, featuring a puppet shaped like a roll of bread as James.
But why? How did a sliver of British humor come to dominate another culture's holidays—with apparently no connective thread back to its source? First, the slapstick of Dinner for One transcends the language barrier. Second, it offers a slight thrill of the verboten: After all, it features a very crazy old lady, a bevy of lecherous male friends, a big stench of post-WWII death, a hell of a lot of drinking, and senior-citizen sex. A third notion, floated by Der Spiegel and the Guardian alike last year, is that the film plays to Germans' worst idea of the British upper class: dotty, pigheadedly traditional, forever marinated in booze despite titles. The BBC counters with the more politic theory that Dinner for One "has become synonymous with British humor, on a par with Mr. Bean." British TV executives see it as fit only for foreigners, or they would rush to broadcast it themselves. Why Germany finds it so funny and the British don't is, according to Der Spiegel's Sebastian Knauer, "one of the last unsolved questions of European integration."
But the biggest reason for Dinner for One's popularity, I suspect, is the magic of repetition. The skit is mildly funny, sure, but much more important is that it has the mysterious quality of something that could get very funny after years of drunken viewing. The script itself, so laden with repetition, lodges in the brain and accretes in-jokes easily. (Like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Showgirls, which have achieved bad-is-good popularity through repetition, Dinner for One has a bad little kernel of a story and a crass creepiness.) And in a modern Germany many feel is teetering into economic free fall, a comfortable old-time ritual has an almost religious attraction.
Best of all, Dinner for One is a perfect foundation for a tidy drinking game in which you down four different liquors in 11 minutes, "the same procedure as every year." What more fitting way to ring in the New Year?
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1/01/2006 12:48:00 PM
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