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Yemen

Nuclear update

OK, I have read that the nuclear power plants that will be built here will be run by Americans with Yemeni forces securing them. That makes me feel better, but I’m still not convinced that it is the best idea. If the same crews, or at least the same quality of crews that run plants in the US run the ones here, I really won’t worry too much about a Chernobyl type of incident. On the other hand, political instability is still an issue, as is the ability of Yemen’s forces to secure these places. It is common knowledge that bribes can be made to get just about whatever you want here. It seem probable that a wealthy backer could get access to the plants with some well placed money, either to steal stuff, or just do some damage. In any case, I feel a little better, but we should still be cautious.

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Rants

Iran and the US

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…

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Economics

Bingo!

Well, I think I was right about the corn subsidies screwing things up. The latest copy of the Yemen Observer has a representative of some trade group defending the rise in wheat prices. He mentions that the EU, Russia, and Australia had lower than expected harvests, but he says that the corn subsidies caused a decline in the US production of wheat. I know this isn’t “proof,” but I think that it shows corroboration of my theory. The representative expects the market to correct itself early next year, but until then, we’re going to have to live with higher wheat prices…

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Yemen

Getting used to it…

Our downstairs neighbor invited us to dinner the other night. They are a muslim couple from South Africa and have rented out the entire bottom floor so that she doesn’t have to be covered up all the time. After he got back from the mosque, we broke the fast with him. It was quite good, biyarini, some juice, and some other little finger foods. Here’s the thing, we all knew that his wife was the one who prepared all of this, but we never saw her. We expected this, the men and women simply do not mix, if I go to someone’s house I not only do not talk to any women, but I never see them. I’m almost (almost) used to this. The thing I still have problems with is that it is impolite to even mention the wife. I cannot compliment his wife’s cooking, cannot inquire about her health, and I especially can’t ask what her name is. I have to pretend that she doesn’t exist.

I mentioned to Diana (a fellow American student) that I am still uncomfortable with this sort of arrangement but that I figured that I would have to get used to it. She said no, I should never get used to it. I think she’s right. It’s one thing to be accommodating to a culture, it’s quite another to go against your beliefs. I’m not going to piss anyone off, but I will still think of the wives, even when I’m not supposed to…

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Yemen

Why do I bother?

Well, it’s 3Am and I’m not going to get to sleep for a while. People stay up pretty late during Ramadan, the kids are still running up and down the street, cars are honking their horns, and there are continuous prayers being sung by the innumerable mosques in the neighborhood. I was up until 2, and then I was too tired to stay up, so I’ve been laying in bed listening to all of this for an hour. Things won’t start to quiet down until after the morning call to prayer. Normally, I wouldn’t really care, I’d just sleep late like everyone else does, but tomorrow I need to be up at 8:30 to go take care of some things for my new visa. I’ll be pretty zombie-like in the morning…

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Rants

Wow, this man saved the world…

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov saved the world on september 26th, 1983. We almost had a nuclear war, luckily he kept his head… You can read more
here
and
here
. The man deserves our thanks…

Categories
Economics

Propane prises have risen

In addition to wheat, the cost of propane has gone up as well. It has almost doubled in the past month. Once again, people are blaming “greedy” distributers. I’ll have to do some digging, but I’m willing to bet that it is the same forces at work here as there is in the wheat market. The op-ed in the paper says that the government should subsidize the price of propane, through Ramadan if not indefinitely. The current price is the equivalent of $3.50 a tank. I’m guessing that it is already subsidized. So the problem is either that distributers are colluding and driving the price up artificially, or maybe, just maybe there is enough increased demand during ramadan that the gas is now worth more and this is the actual market clearing price.

Another interesting thought is that the government gave all government employees an extra month’s salary as a bonus for ramadan. If you add money to the money supply, you devalue it, it’s the same thing as inflation. I didn’t think that this would make much of a difference, but many people that have jobs here have them through the government. Maybe there was more money injected into the system than I thought? One other thing that could have happened is that businesses could have raised their prices because they knew that there would be more money circulating in the system. This is a well know macro economic issue, businesses will raise prices as they think their cliental can pay more. We don’t see this too much in the US anymore, but it still takes place in places where the governments announce across the board pay raises. Usually, the government is trying to combat the effects of inflation by paying people more in order to afford things. Of course the combination of adding more money to the supply and the news that there will be more money circulating just drives prices up again. It’s a vicious circle…

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Economics

The wrong way to fight corruption…

The Millennium Challenge Corporation has granted the Yemeni government 20.6 million dollars in order to fight corruption. Ummm, that sounds a little dubious. If the government is misusing funds, why would you give them more money? There’s even the promise of more funds in the future. The Yemeni ambassador to the US said, “The decision is a recognition of Yemen’s achievements in the regard, and it is an important step towards preparing Yemen for full membership of the program whereby the country will receive even more support annually.” Wow, talk about bad incentives. Many economists (and political commentators in those countries) blame the dependance on foreign aid on the inability of the country to improve. There is undoubtedly more to this story, the papers here give just the most superficial treatment to stories, but it still sounds worrying to me.

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Rants

Drug education

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?

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Music

Stuck song-itus

We all get songs stuck in our heads sometimes. If it’s in the middle of the day, and it’s some sort catchy pop tune, it can be a little aggravating, but a little fun too… On the other hand, if it’s at 3AM and the song is dark and disturbing, it’s a real problem. I’ve got “Berry” by Hole stuck in my head. That’s Courtney Love’s band and it’s off their first album “Pretty on the Inside.” You know you’re in for a good time when the first line of the song is, “Do you want to ride my death machine?” Of course it’s the chorus that’s stuck in my head…

And when I die
won’t you
bury me?
Cause baby
I bury you
deep
inside me.

It’s a frightful conflagration of sex, heroin use, violence and hopelessness. At this point in the album, she is feeling the accumulated weight of all of her (and other people’s) decisions and is lashing out. She ends the song with a lament/realiziation about her boyfriend the heroin dealer, “When you fall for the garbage man, you end up in the garbage…” Leaving off the obvious rhyme “can” from the end makes the word “garbage” just hang out there. She forsook cleverness with the rhyme in order to hammer home her opinion of her life and friends. The next song on the album is one of the most terrifying drug songs ever penned IMO. Luckily, that song, “Loaded” is not going through my head…

I’ve always compared that album to Orwell’s book “1984.” You can’t say that you enjoy reading “1984,” but you have to admit that it’s a powerful work. “Pretty on the Inside” is not for the faint of heart, it is one of the most brutal albums I’ve ever heard. It’s almost a concept album, the “main character” is introduced in the first song “When I was a Teenage Whore” and is promptly kicked out of her parents’ house. She goes to live on the street and becomes a literal whore, gets hooked on heroin, and it goes downhill from there. There isn’t a bit of sugarcoating, every song gets darker until at the end you almost hope she dies, then maybe the pain will end. If I picture a friend, high school classmate, or family member in the character’s place, I feel literal pain when listening to this, tears are not uncommon for me. The real power of this is the idea that as painful as this is to listen to, people actually live with these situations and feelings. We just get a peek of that life, that’s the reason to listen to stuff like this, to develop emphathy. The entire album is a monument to self loathing. The character never thinks much of herself, and she can never bring herself to forgive anyone, including herself. The writing is amazing and Courtney puts on one hell of a performance. A little too good as a matter of fact. There is so much pain and bile on this album that you can’t help but wonder if she made any of it up.

The calls to prayer are still going on outside, I need to think of another song, another album, another something. I can’t fall asleep with thoughts like this…

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