Its all bad; its all good

My landlord Nikki V is doing a piece for KBOO Radio about austerity measures people (may or may not have learned from their parents/grandparents) are using to get by in "this nasty economy."

I listen with mild interest, because so far my economy seems unaffected by Wall Street's 777+ drop this week after the big bailout failed to get past the taxpayer. I mean, please, does any of those bankers truly believe we are THAT stupid? Supporting a war for oil is one thing, but supporting the big wig banker down the street -- the same guy working on your foreclosure -- naw man. no love for the banker.

I wonder how long I will be able to sit and observe all of this going on before i have to work the strip again just to pay rent ...

Is anyone out there tightening the belt? I know that there are now about 100,000 yuppies wondering what to do with themselves in NYC. They better start learning Chinese and drinking baijiu with some corrupt greedy bureaucrats in Beijing ... Joint Ventures will need their "help" trying to get lying ass Chinese partners to do the right thing ...

The right thing ... the Shenzhou spacewalk is to the Sanlu milk scandal what Palin is to the Republican Party is what Cruise missiles are to Lewinsky is what TV is to woes is what a religion is to the spirit.

There was an insert in last Sunday's paper called Obsession: Radical Islam's War against the West. It caught the attention of a few people ... as it is some pretty uninformative scare-mongering propaganda. The basic goal of the DVD is to equate Radical Islam with Nazism both as anti-Semitic and anti-Western.

Now a few people have pointed out that the Treaty of Versailles did help to bring about Hitler, but no one would go so far as to excuse the Nazis for what they did because of WWI. The Treaty of Versailles took land from the Germans and brought about massive economic collapse in that country .. is that an excuse for genocide? never.

So if we keep playing this relativist game, then we have to equate

the conditions in Germany during the 1930s
the causes of those conditions
Germany's response

to

the conditions in the Middle East since the end of WWI
the causes of those conditions
and Islam's response

it gets a little messy and circumstantial. But i think if you read the history of the Middle East since WWI and replace the Middle East with, say, the US, then you will (if you are American) most likely find yourself contemplating mass rebellion and guerrilla warfare. The Arab states were partitioned and controlled by outside forces (Britain, France, US) and pitted against each other and eventually placed under the control of the most iron-fisted despots in the region. Of course an ideology of rebellion will arise out of those conditions ...

I suppose the true link between Nazism and Radical Islam is the Jewish State of Israel. The Nazis (and their many many European collaborators) felt guilty enough to give the Jews a state, but they did not feel guilty enough to give them Switzerland or Luxembourg or Prussia or some other swath of territory from the people who slew them.

Instead, Europe made the Arabs pay for their mistake. And used the Book as justification.

What will arise, eventually, out of America's economic crisis and the wars around the world is a new appreciation for History amongst a people (Americans) who have been taught to believe that history died during the boat trip to the New World. If it means re-learning what Grampa did to get by during the hard times, or what exactly hobo glyphs are or just the aftermath of the Great War ... it will be a maturing of our young nation. Maybe I will live to see it.

in the mountains

don' worry i will add pics in a bit.

i arrived from amsterdam sunday afternoon and went to my man tenzin's house and eased back with him and his woman aliya. i booked a flight the next day for jiu zhai gou, as there was an ecotourism forum going on and my friend andrew is in charge of some scientific and other consulting. including bringing foreigners to any forum that may be organized. about ten of us arrived. the flight from chengdu to jiu zhai gou is one of the hairiest flights i know of. jiu zhai gou is in the sichuan himalayas, the plane hovers 100 or so meters above jagged peaks and is jolted by the winds careening off off valleys. the sky is absolutely clear, so you can see imminent death as it reaches up for you. the turbulence is amazing. our flight was the only one that was able to land on monday, six other flights returned to chengdu to wait for the winds to subside.

the forum itself was a joke, as these things tend to be. its the informal back hallway sessions that truly hold meaning for the development of sustainable ecotourism here. we went on several hikes and i am about to go on one now.

one note: miss russia was in attendance. a beautiful brunette with cold russian features warmed only by her eyes, the only thing about her that cannot be painted or covered in perfume. the first morning, her minders knocked a thousand times on her door, pounding and calling her name -- elena -- until she finally rose and told them to go away. she had arrived at 4am after taking a bus. her flight was delayed indefinitely. i saw her several times, including at the opening ceremonies in front of an ice waterfall. as with many such beautiful women, followed by cameras and attendants, her face held a firm closed off smile. while her eyes searched anxiously and almost desperately for a someone to talk to. whenever i saw her walking down the hall, trailing perfume and scuttling underlings, i smiled and said hello as warmly and as nonchalantly as possible. i wanted her to know that she was a person first, gorgeous sex symbol distant second. she appreciated it. it was an amazing piece of acting on my part. i am after all a man and russian beauty is extremely difficult to ignore. when she left, i took a picture with her and she took my email address and told me she would send it. we shall see.

mountains can only be fathomed when you hike them.

to A'Dam

In four hours, my plane leaves for Amsterdam. actually six hours, but i have an hour long train ride ahead of me. i just got off the phone with a woman. i'm tellin ya. if anything can spin yer dome around, its a woman. i am not sure if she is humoring me or subtly hinting that i should up and lock her down. its hard work, deciphering and such.

so. to lighten the load my brain has to carry around, i will decompress in Adam, city of canals and cafes, and prepare for my return to china. three weeks with my family has also been very emotional. my brother and i had yet another seminal night of crying and yelling in the Wiesloch slaughterhouse. our bond grows ever stronger. my sister and i have traded silly barbs, sagely advice and evil eyes. my mom and i loved and hated each other. and me and my dad stayed out of each others' way. as for the other family members, my great aunt and uncle are really a pleasure to hang around. they are close enough to love me unconditionally, far enough away to not meddle in my affairs. its perfect.

so off to Adam. where i will be spending the weekend with Alexandra Wiercowic (sp) a beautiful polish princess. when i was 16, i went with her cousin and my best friend, Filip Pawelka, to their hometown of Slupsk in northern Poland. She was maybe 10, and she would follow us around through the ghetto projects, staring up at us and blushing and laughing. she was gangly, but it was clear to all how gorgeous she was going to be. anyway, it has been a long standing joke between the Pawelkas and me that Ola, as she is affectionately known, had a massive crush on me. its easy to understand, considering how damn charming my ass can be. and now i visit the fully grown, fully operational Ola in Amsterdam. She has a man, so all you lecherous bastards and romantic fools can sigh in disgust.

and i dont smoke no more either. i will probably go to the van gogh museum, and see what Ola has to say about domespinning fox devils and girlhood crushes.