Category: Rants

Weird stuff going on today… I wanted to wash some clothes, so I went up and checked if the clotheslines were free, they were. So I went back downstairs and did a load, went back to the roof, and the lines were filled with clothes from the family downstairs. Grrr.. I had to do some errands so I went into town and left my wet clothes in the washing tub in the bathroom. While I was eating, I remembered that I have a contraption for drying socks and underwear etc. It has a whole bunch of clothespins and hangs from a single hook. Problem solved! I went back home and… someone was in the bathroom so I couldn’t get my clothes. Then they started to take a shower…grrr…

Needless to say, they eventually finished and I was able to hang up my laundry. While I was up there, I noticed that the toilet that they had replaced downstairs was now on the roof. What the hell? If the toilet is broken (i.e. not the inner mechanics) than it is trash. There is no use for it. Why would someone take a broken toilet and lug it up two flights of stairs to put it on the roof? They were on the ground floor for God’s sake… I also noticed for the first time the three broken, plastic tubs that we have gone through since I’ve been there. They are for washing clothes and they all have a crack from the lip of the tub down through the base. In other words, they are useless pieces of trash. I had put them in the trash when they broke, so why are they up on the roof? I had seen another house with trash on the roof and never got any answers about why, now I’m living in one… I gotta ask around about this.

Today’s class was a disaster. I didn’t want to be there, I was tired, and I couldn’t think. There were several times that I looked down at the paper and it just looked like squiggles, they didn’t make any sense to me. I’m going to stop taking classes soon. My brain is fried. Everything is suddenly pissing me off, the trash, the noise, the language, the people, the politics, the culture, etc. I need to go home. If history is any indication, I will be fine when I get back, but it’s not pretty right now. Where’s that bottle of Cognac?

Well, our South African couple moved out of the bottom floor. But wait! We have new housemates! A Maylaysian family complete with two children… I am so glad that I am moving soon, I really don’t want to deal with the kids, or their new, local playmates in my house…

So I was still having trouble with my ATM card. I had verified the transactions that I had made, but the next time I used it, I was refused again. I called up the bank and they explained that I was OK by them, but that VISA had put the card into the fraud investigation category. My bank put me in touch with VISA, I answered their questions and was told that I was now clear to use the card. OK, so that night I go to the ATM and… it was refused again. Grrrr… So I called again today, was told that VISA had put a hold on the card for the fraud investigation. I mentioned that I had already jumped through VISA’s hoops, the lady on the other end did some clicking away at her keyboard and confirmed that I had done it, but the guy that had been helping me neglected to pass the info along to the necessary person to clear the card. So I answered a few more questions successfully and the lady said that the card would be ready to use in 5 or six minutes and there was nothing else for me to do. I thanked her and then told her that I would stay on the line until she told me that the card was ready. That did the trick. A couple of minutes later, she informed me that the entire process was completed. Tonight I went back to the ATM and… Success!! Whew! Now I can proceed to spend all of my money…

I’m a month or so into the project, and I’m not convinced that I’m going to keep it. I’ve been introduced to the joys of grooming as opposed to shaving it all off, what a pain! I almost said the hell with it yesterday, I had the razor in my hand, but I held off. Later that night Tami (a newish American student) told me that I needed to keep with it. She asked me how else was I going to get my “terrorist beard?” Hmmm, I’ll see how it goes, gotta blend in, right:-)

Isaac

I’m getting sick and tired of all of this saber rattling from the US. The president of Iran (I’m not going to attempt to spell his name) recently spoke at Columbia University. The guy’s a jerk, and he has some views that are indefensible. Be that as it may, Columbia did invite him to speak, so I find the remarks of Columbia’s president to be way out of line. He called Iran’s president a “petty dictator” which really showed his ignorance of Iran and it’s political situation. Iran elected him, and as much as he might want to be a dictator, everyone knows that the real power is with the clerics. Any problems you might have with Iran (and there is plenty to be upset about) can be laid at the clerics feet.

What is really frosting me is the fact that the US has never, and probably will never admit to any of the reasons why the Iranian government does not like the US. The US had an instrumental role in overthrowing the elected leader of Iran and installing the Shah in 1953. By all accounts, the Shah was an awful ruler, but he wasn’t a communist! That’s all the US cared about. In 1978, the Iranians deposed the Shah, took over our embassy, and held the embassy workers hostage for over a year. Now that’s pretty bad, but I still gotta say that overthrowing their government and installing a dictator was probably a worse thing… Later on we backed Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran. As far as I can tell, we did this mostly out of spite, still stinging from the whole embassy thing. The Iranians know what a monster Saddam was, he used chemical weapons against the Iranians while we were backing him. That war was the equivalent of WWI for Iran, they lost an entire generation, the number of casualties was awful. The US is currently backing an organization called the MKO. They have been responsible for numerous bombings in both Iran and Iraq. By any other measure they would be considered a terrorist organization, but we refuse to allow the Iranians to strike their base of operations that is inside Iraq.

What’s pretty clear to me is that the US has systematically screwed around with the Iranians for decades, and for what? For the Iranian’s retaliatory storming of our embassy and holding our people hostage? Is that enough of a reason to continue to hound and badger them? What danger do they pose to us? What danger have they posed to us? It seems to me that we could go a long ways towards a peaceful middle east (that is the goal, right?) if we simply recognized our belligerence and apologized for our meddling throughout the years. We don’t have to forgive them for whatever “terrorist” activities they have been supporting, but just putting our past sins on the table will allow us to get past the whole, “You are evil!” method of diplomacy. It would also help get rid of some of the smell of hypocrisy surrounding the US actions over here. In my mind, the Iranians have every reason not to trust us, and they have done very little to us to deserve the scorn and judgement that we heap on them…

Last night’s stuck song made me remember something that I have always wished would be pursued. Drug education usually amounts to an explanation of the drug (active ingredients, addiction method, etc.) and an admonition to stay away from them. Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign is probably the best example of ridiculous drug education. She tells you what to do, but not why. So when pressure, or desire comes up, there is no defense.

“Berry” and “Loaded” (see here for explanation) are possibly good examples of how drug education should be. If you can actually show kids what happens when you decide to do that, it will have a much greater impact than just telling them. In my mind, the biggest deterrents to drug use are the drug users themselves. I have seen countless clips of famous rock and roll types under the influence of various things, and they are all wretched. The interview of Sid vicious in his bed with Nancy is a classic. He actually falls asleep in the middle of a sentence, lets his cigarette drop out of his mouth and burns her. The Red Hot Chile Pepper’s guitarist gave an interview to a Dutch TV station while he was in the throes of heroin addiction. They ask him why he does heroin, and he replies that he needs some beauty in his life. The sight of this, obviously dying, man saying that he takes the thing that is killing him for beauty’s sake is really tough to watch. He eventually pulled out of it BTW…

The best thing to show kids, and maybe even adults, is a show called “Intervention.” They show it on A&E or maybe the Learning Channel. They follow a drug addict around, show him/her doing drugs and what they have to do each day to get through. This is key, they actually show the needle going into the vein and the resulting track marks. They show how the alcoholic mother has to stop and get a drink all day long, they show the woman selling herself in order to pay for her habit. You also get to see people under the influence, and it’s always sad and terrible. You gotta bring this stuff home if it’s going to have an effect. They then show the intervention by the friends and families. That’s pretty awful. It isn’t enough to show what drugs do to you, you have to see what they do to everyone else. I’ve been told that that is a classic problem with addiction, you are unaware and/or don’t care what kind of effect that you have on others. It’s important to see that before you start down that road. They then show the aftermath of the intervention. On the show, most people agree to go to rehab, but not all do. Some are even given the option of rehab or jail, and they choose jail. Once again, it’s important to see how crazy you can get when in the grips of this stuff. The ones that do accept going to rehab never have an easy time. On the show, most relapse and either have to go back to rehab, or they live with the consequences.

I can’t help but think that his approach would be much more successful, and certainly more humane than the current “war on drugs” that we have right now. Many people feel that throwing these people into prison “for their own good” will somehow help them. They also feel that the best deterrence is the fear of incarceration. I humbly (ha!) suggest that it is not working, it has never worked, and something else needs to be tried. This would be a pretty easy (and cheap) effort, why not give it a try?