Dolls and the Iraq War

Yesterday, my daughter and her friend were playing dolls; they were pretending that one of the dolls was at the hospital. My daughter said, "There is a war in Iraq, let's pretend she is at the hospital in Iraq." After a short silence, her friend responded, "No, let's pretend they belong to a different time." They continued with their conversation. They sounded striking similar to us, adults, in our conversations about this war of choice——if we talk about it.

#Suspending all Activites

McCain is suspending the debate with Obama, he explains that this is because he is going to Washington to discuss the financial crisis. Um. Is he trying to play the heroe? Did he panic? In either case, he has made a mistake: the debates are important and the country needs to hear the candidates, face to face, and make a decision as to whom would be our best leader. I do not have a doubt about it, and I am suspending all activities till the crisis is over.

Invasions and Generations

Between 1970 and 2003, the USA has invaded five countries——in what the US calls "operations":

2003: Iraq: Operation Iraqi Freedom.

1994: Haiti: Operation Uphold Democracy.

1989: Panama: Operation Just Cause.

1983: Granada: Operation Urgent Fury.

1970: Cambodia, part of the Vietnam War, not particular name.

People who were in their 20s in the 1970s have witnessed five invasions already. These people are now in their 50s and their children, if they were born in the 1980s, are now in their twenties (the same age of their parents when the invasion of Cambodia)——and an invasion has taken place every six years since they were born in the 1980s. It means that we are used to invading other countries, that we think it is something this country does as a matter of course.

Blogs

I am back to my blog. I was quite busy this week after my trip to Madrid. I met not only scholars in the history of alchemy but also practitioners of alchemy (distillation practices). This group came from Canada, USA, Germany, England, and Spain and they knew their symbols and recipes and talked about energy fields and lunar influences. The existence of this group was a surprise to me: I did not know there were practitioners of this art today.

Note: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is halted for the time being. There was an electric problem and a magnet failure. Too bad: I was hoping to get some answer about the origins of the universe but I will have to wait a little longer.

Economic Intervention

The Bush Administration is now in conversations with Congress to design $700 billion intervention plat to rescue the financial system. The Chavez administration has been intervening in the Venezuelan economy for some time now. As mentioned in previous posts, the Bush and Chavez administration share a number of striking similarities: both have placed their administration above their respective constitutions; both had bend the system to create a more powerful executive; and now both have intervened the economy. My sense is that their similarites come from the fact that both administrations are ideologically driven.

Colombia

I recently came back from Colombia. Colombia seems to be doing better now than few years ago. People is traveling within the country. Foreigners are coming back to the country, especially from Europe. During a visit to a tropical jungle in near the Magdalena River, I met a women from Wales, England, who was traveling by herself and who mentioned that Colombia is once again a destination for Europeans interested in traveling in South America (in that group I met there were four people from Colombia, two people from England, and one from Israel). In cities like Bogotá, the traffic is not as bad as it used to be some years ago. Authorities in Bogotá had implemented the "pico y placa" system (restricting the circulation of some cars according to their last digit of the license plate) and the Transmilenio (a bus transit rapid system), which had helped solving some of the transportation problems of Bogotá. In terms of violence (guerrillas and paramilitares), the government has been hitting hard the FARC, and this group looks very weak today. It is still operating and harming the country but it probably will have to negotiate with the government soon. The paramilitaries are trying to negotiate with the government prision terms and other issues but, lateley, new evidence linking paramilitaries and members of congress and military officers had emerged. At least, the information is coming out. This is also good for the country.

I did enjoy my days in Bogotá.

Food, floods, oil and organic decisions

Yesterday I talked to a friend who mentioned she tries to be self-sufficient in terms of food (and, so she grows her own food). She can not be fully self-sufficient, she explained to me, so she buys from farmers in the area. She said, "food is important to me." I responded, "food is also important for me, and most people, but I am not trying to be self-sufficient. I buy at the supermarket and the farmer's market." I asked her why she is trying to be self-sufficient. She told me she grew up that way. I suppose that explains part of the story. She also told me about a farm in my area (Central New York) that had to close: their owners could not make enough money and sold it. (Someone else commented that the Midwest Floods will affect production of food internally as well as exports) Food and oil prices are still moving up and it is becoming more difficult to pay for organic food (production and transportation): I am not sure how we will negotiate organic food, food prices, and oil prices but it is already changing the dynamics at the counter level.

Twitter II

I have been using twitter for few weeks already. I have read some people refer to it as a community, as utility, as a broadcasting tool. I am still intrigued by it: it is a tool, a medium, to create communities and foster conversations. In many cases, groups of friends and colleagues have created those communities and continue conversations that began in living-rooms, coffee shops, conferences, and offices. There are a number of people like me who began without particular friends or colleagues and navigate the Twitter landscape looking for communities and conversations (the way we do it when we first go to a conference in our discipline or to a party where we do not know most of the people): it is not easy to find those communities and conversations——one person I was following blocked her postings after I asked her about the Argentinian group Les Luthiers. Most people I have reply to have answered and added me to their list of followers but that is usually the extent of it, and that is just fine. So far I liked it but I am still at large.

Blogging your personal life

Blogs seem to have opened this incredible opportunity for almost everybody with a computer to write about almost everything and "publish" it. Those in their 20s, people who have finished college recently and are now at the beginning of their professional lives, seem to have embraced blogs and social networking fully (not that people in their 30s and 40s have not done so themselves but I am guessing there are more people in their 20s blogging than those in their 30s and 40s). They are experimenting with this medium and finding out the ethical and political consequences of their blogging. Ms. Gould tells about her tribulations as she exposed her life and with it the life of others, and the consequences of doing it when it becomes part of the circuit of blog commentators. I am struck by the comments in the NYT to her piece: I only read seven or ten (there are over 700 comments) but they were quite nasty and rude. I am wondering if this tell us something about the kind of readerships (perhaps in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity) that follow the NYT as opposed to the readership that follow blogs. Anyway, here is the piece by Ms. Gould.

Commencement 2008

Sunday was graduation day at my institution. It rained and rained and we (students, parents, and faculty) sat throughout the ceremony: some of us shrank a little bit, just enough to make our clothes a little bit looser. The 08 graduates are moving into a complicated world (but, then again, who has not): a war with no end in sight; gas prices rising; food prices also rising; and a dollar weak and weaker. It is a world full of possibilities (like the world we moved in when we graduated, of course): the first African American president; social networkings are beginning to dominate the Internet (and they have embraced them); and the media is becoming medias and networks. I do not know where this generation is going but I am guessing is taking our world into very interesting places. Good luck, Class of 08.