Author: Aaron Weber

Plan Colombia

Plan Colombia comes in for a lot of flak from the left as being a militaristic adventure on the part of the DEA, and it’s certainly had its problems. But I recently got a rather involved comment on it from someone involved in some of its more successful, nonviolent, actions. Read on for some very well-reasoned opinions (which may or may not reflect those of any government agency or associated company and are not an official statement of any sort) about policy, economic development, and more. I’ll follow up later with links on guerillas, terrorism, drugs, and alternative development in Colombia and the world at large.
Continue reading “Plan Colombia”

Fun with Elective Surgery and Infanticide

When I was younger, an ‘elective’ was a fun optional class you took. Usually art, or drama, or maybe comparative government and Model UN. Now it’s surgery. Of course it’s always tempting to come back to the most scandalous topic here, and you can count on a slow news day at the science desk resulting in another quick article on labiaplasty.

And more weird medical news: now that we have generations of young men seeking marriage and finding no women their age in China and India, things get more and more bizarre: buying a drugged-up wife from a mental hospital? And demanding a refund when you discover she’s defective? I was thinking that maybe as women became rarer, that it would be a chance for women to assert their importance.

But then again, it’s often the women performing the infanticide anyway. Yet one more reminder that oppression and violence are incredibly corrosive.

Road Names

Here in Taxachussets, some things are called funny names.

For example, they say “massave” to designate Massachussets Avenue. And “commave” for Commonwealth Avenue. Some people say “dotave” for Dorchester Avenue. And some say “memdrive” for Memorial Drive. I do, and Ryan does. Megan and Antonia insist, however, that noooobody says Mem Drive to mean Memorial Drive.

But what do they know? They’re so vehemently cantabridgian they say “downtown” to designate anything east of the river, whether that’s Beacon, Brookline, or Brighton.

….

Speaking of big words, Toby Cecchini has a book coming out called “Cosmopolitan” that uses a lot of big words. It’s about being a star bartender– he worked at the Odeon and took a rather obscure cocktail named the Cosmopolitan and revised it slightly, and then watched it become very very popular, and burn out, and turn way too sweet, and now he’s embarrassed by it. (He likes it 5 parts citron vodka, 5 parts triple sec, 4 parts fresh lime juice (the fresh juice is key– Rose’s is waaay too sweet, and I should know, I love the stuff), and just enough cranberry to color it.) But mostly the book is about what it’s like to be somewhere at the intersection of servant, pimp, pusher, and artist.

He doesn’t quite hold his tone as well as he should, and is no good excuse for his use of the word “salubrious,” and even of his (multiple) uses of the word “matinal.” Nonetheless, he does a good job of showing off a liberal arts education which presumably he hasn’t used much behind the bar. And he also shows off a lot of fantastic insight into why the food industry is amazing, cool, and not for anyone who can avoid it. I’ve often fantasized about being a bartender, but then again, I’ve often fantasized about being a race car driver or an astronaut, and neither of those are likely to happen either. I enjoy playing bartender at parties like I enjoy playing race car driver in games, or space cadet at work, but that doesn’t make a career out of it.

Blah blah blah

I’m insanely busy right now. Here are links:
Doctor Slang— I learned about it from the acronym “FLK” meaning “Funny looking kid,” as in “we got an FLK in room 203”.

Remember that Simpson’s episode where all the lights go out, and there’s looting, and Homer and Marge won’t let Bart go out looting, and he’s all bummed?. Never woulda happened.

Drugs are bad, mmkay?

Palast on Power Outage. At what point does his greatness become taken for granted, and at what point after that will I stop reading his stuff just because I more or less know it’s going to uncover yet another miserable awful horror? Well I guess I would have to start reading it regularly first. I mean, yes, I know it’s great and all.

I’m hooked on HBO’s series The Wire. Love it. Final episode next week. I still can’t believe Zig shot those guys. I knew that he’d eventually do something really dumb, and get caught, and that would be a major plot crux, but I had no idea it would be that horrifically stupid, or that he had that kind of violence in him. At the same time, it’s so completely believable I keep rethinking it, knowing I was blindsided by the inevitable. And that one woman who has the same haircut as Miranda from Sex and the City? Brilliant in-joke there. Very subtle– fits the character perfectly to have her get her hair cut that way, too.

Nature

My Do We Need Nature post keeps getting responses. Most of them seem to completely miss the point, both of the post and of the essay contest.

My post asked “would there be a legitimate argument that nature is not necessary?” and noted that the best likely answer to that sort of question is to attack the question rather than accept its legitimacy. Responders stated, more or less, “nature is good!”

Yes, thank you. Thank you also for noting that puppies are cute and rainbows are pretty.

The essay contest, doesn’t even ask the question ‘Do we need nature?’ That’s just a theme. The essays are supposed to define an appropriate place for humanity in the world. No, I don’t think I’ll be entering– I’m not sure I have an opinion on humanity’s just place in the world.

Stereotypes and TV

Tuesday night I saw the Bravo lineup of gayness: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, then Boy Meets Boy, then more Queer Eye.

Boy Meets Boy, the most frivolous of them all, is perhaps the one with the most redeeming social value. Sure, it’s a mean-twist dating show, but on the other hand, it really forced me to examine my preconceptions. I kept expecting the suitors to be having rampant casual sex, or for the ‘leading man’ to sleep with each of them to see which he preferred in bed. But he spent a lot of time talking about values and relationships and emotions. Then there was one boy who actually said, honestly, “well, you know, you’re a great guy, but I’m not feeling the kind of electric connection I had hoped for. I’d love to be friends but I don’t think we should date.” He basically kicked himself off the show– I was thinking, dude, how could you NOT LIE! There’s fame and money at stake here! But they were all quite honorable and friendly. Although two of the suitors are definitely starting a romance of their own. Still, I couldn’t help but note the serious reinforcement of heteronormative values: one guy got tossed for having a sometime-boyfriend back in NYC. And of course there’s no real talk about maybe picking two of the suitors or any of that.

Queer Eye is also real reinforcement of heteronormative values (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you). All the straight slobs are trying to learn how to shape up for their girlfriends and wives. But for the most part, it’s frivolous and doesn’t examine stereotypes: just some fairies come and make the house neat and trim your nose hair. Half of it is pimping for West Elm and DWR and the value of back-waxing.

What I’d like to see is “Butch Eye for the Straight Girl” in which five sensible-shoe-wearing lesbians arrive in a Volvo station wagon to the Bridget-Jones apartment of some ditzy fashion-victim girl, educate her about dioxins in bleached tampons and the medical establishment’s sexism, teach her how to play folk songs on the guitar, and help her dress for comfort rather than to please others, and show her how not to care about body image, and learn to love herself as she is. Then she’d go out for coffee with her female friends and not talk to any of the boys or care about them, and just be self-sufficient for once.

Crazy

There’s yet another psychology study claiming Bush is a nutter. But most of us knew that already. He’s as crazy as … well, significant portions of the political fringe, and probably significant portions of the world as well.

This isn’t the first study looking at Bush’s actions for hints of pyschological frailty, mining the rich territory of alcoholism, manichean fundamentalism and warmongering, the insistence on loyalty and uniformity. And of course he’s not the first leader of the world to go nuts, either. Look at Rome.

In seventh grade, my history teacher Mr. Dupree told us how the US was a lot like the Roman Empire– how we were living in the glory days and it would all go downhill from here. The first Gulf War was beginning and the enemies of our Nation-State were gathering strength. Probably not the best thing to teach seventh graders, to be honest. I spent weeks having trouble sleeping, thinking the world really was going to end, that we were going to lose a war and that I would personally suffer for it in some inexplicable and awful way.