I spoke too soon about media coverage here. Now every paper, and the BBC and SKY1 have been trumpeting how the US is incompetent and racist. On the BBC last night, "This wouldn't have happened in MARYland or Beverly Hills". Obviously Nigel has never been to Baltimore. Most of these British know about as much about America as I know about Britain. Except, I'm spouting my nonsense here instead of of tv.
Nonsensical observational interlude: Though I've read that Czech Republic is the most atheistic country in the world, it would be hard to beat the British. Nearly every one I've met has been highly irreligious. I think Jeremy Bentham, JS Mill, and Bertrand Russell intellectually battered them (being already traumatized by Henry VIII altering their whole metaphysical outlook on whim) and left them pliable for the likes of Richard Dawkins (and Douglas Adams warms them up as children). I was in Foyle's and there was a whole shelf of Dawkins, but only THREE books by Stephen Jay Gould. Now Gould was no friend of religion (he was in my mind the better evolutionary theorist than Dawkins) but at least he had an intellectually honesty about it and wasn't grinding his smarmy axe. Regardless, irreligiousity isn't something to ruffle my feathers per se, BUT the one thing that the Brits have retained from their years as champions of Protestantism is HATRED of the Catholic Church (And consequently... or maybe because they.. hate Hispanics, Irish, and Italians). The cab driver who brought me from Heathrow said, "I'm not religious one bit, but the Mooslims don't bother me at all so long as they behave. Now the Catholics, they're the biggest fucking hypocrites around. An EYEtalian can fuck his brother's wife and go to confession and he's right as rain." You have to respect theological insight like that. I've worn my Notre Dame shirt every day since (and it stinks). See if they'll let ME say all THAT on Nightline.
Anyway, as for my thoughts on the hurricane. It DOES look to the rest of the world that we got caught with our pants down. I think everyone knows we're trying to do something basically impossible in Iraq, so they don't really think we're weaker for it. But for us to seem so helpless in our own backyard? The images in the papers and news (and I realize they're manipulated) DO look like a 3rd world country. The general sense is that we're overestimated, a paper tiger like the Soviet Union was. I'm don't' really agree with that. Bureaucrats don't ruin a country with a strong Geist, certainly not to be found in Europe anymore.
I think the MUNICIPAL government in NO failed MISERABLY, and that the mayor is a scoundrel using to media to attack the federal government so he not only doesn't lose his own political career, but go down as one of the most ignominious politicians in our history (he shouldn't worry too much though... the whole Bush administration is right behind him).
That said, people have to take SOME responsibility. I don't know, but weren't buses made available for evacuation? Aren't there people who STILL won't leave? I'll have to wait until more information is forthcoming.
And since I haven't posted regularly-
Update of last week and a half:
Flight was uneventful. Knees were cramped. Stewardess spilled tea on my favorite jacked (it's white). Got housed. Pretty standard.
Its odd I moved into as being not too bad before. The Regent "Palace" in Piccadilly is a rathole. It smelled of mildew, there was a bloodstain on the pillow and the bed, when the toiled up stairs flushed, the sink would back up and I could smell it, and I got a rash (ok now you know I don't think any girls will read this). I stayed there for 5 days until my sister did me an AWESOME favour and booked me a hotel that usually costs $250 a night for $71 dollars a night! It is in Kensington right by the V&A and it's the sheez. Too bad tonight is my last night there and I can't get the same rate and... I still haven't found a place.
Finding a place is slow going. I don't know where I'm going most of the time, so I go to a lot of places that are really inconvenient (travelwise) or dumps. I have to go to the school accommodation office to use the computer to find the listings.. and I don't have a phone so it is hard to contact people. (thought tomorrow I'm going to see if I can get a shady store to unlock my old phone so I can get a pay as you go sim card) On top of all that, though I DO use email to contact them (which is slower of course) half the time the KCL email server is down (such as right now). Its frustrating, I just want to get somewhere and stop wasting time. But not in a $380 a WEEK 10 x 20 "studio" in Notting Hill (its not THAT posh of a neighborhood.. the bombers lived there)
On the weekends I can't do anything else b/c no one does anything resembling work here. So I went to Brighton and then to Windsor and Eton.
Brighton is like UK Myrtle Beach. I've never seen so many pierced and tattooed hooligans in my life. The beach is actually a pebble beach, and the pebbles are big. Think rock garden under the stairs in a 1970's decorated house. And worse, the hooligans are THROWING THEM. Since I had the misfortune to go on a bank holiday, it was packed. The water is also polluted and its not a good idea to go in. Despite all that, it was calming to get out of the city and sit on the beach. The heat and the breeze and the waves were synchronized to soothe everyone (almost...not the guys climbing the ~35 ft. pier and jumping in).
The main sights there other than the beach are the huge pier which has an amusement park at the end (what the pavilion in Myrtle SHOULD be), and the Royal pavilion. The Royal pavilion was a castle bought and extensively remodeled by George IV (who was quite a dandy) to resemble an oriental palace. It looks like an Indian mosque on the exterior, and on the interior the rooms have various (mostly Chinese) Asian themes. Victoria thought it was uncouth and sold it to the city which has kept it as a tourist attraction ever since. It IS kind of cool inside. I wouldn't mind having a 15 ft wide chandelier being held up by a 6 ft long dragon. But the decor is also a little perverse, not to come off as Edward Said, but it was dehumanizing... the little mandarins and Chinese courtesans....a game for the civilized Brits. Aesthetically worth seeing though... it was done by John Nash.
I also went to Windsor and Eton. Pretty standard tourist stuff. Windsor is cool... a huge castle on a hill.... the rooms are lavish, w/ beautiful furniture and art. I never thought I'd say this, but you've seen one palace, you've seen them all. There isn't much to be said that can't also be said about Buckingham Palace or the royal Palace in Brussels. The one exception would be the art collection which truly is amazing. There must have been a dozen van Dyck's alone. Not to mention several each of Rubens, Breugal, and Holbein. And to think the poor queen had to open up Buckingham to tourists to pay her taxes. :/
Eton on the otherhand is pretty unique. A high school older than any university in the US, with more famous alumni than Harvard. The chapel was built by Henry VI, and is pretty cool, despite being truncated due to his political problems. Once again, iconoclasts beat me to it, and so most of the paintings on the walls were destroyed by the Protestants. The tour was guided by a Mary Poppins-ish older lady who was truly in awe of the young boys who go there. She even took us off the tour into one of the medieval classrooms where boys had carved their names... Gladstone, Shelly, the Nepali prince who gunned down his family.. you get the idea. Still, I was impressed (perhaps too easily) by the culture there. They have their own sports, lingo, dress...and the educational opportunities are pretty impressive. I think people SHOULD graduate high school able to compose in Greek and Latin.. and SHOULD be proficient in several instruments. Plato would be impressed by that, if not by the snobbery. If I am ever in a position to do so, I would shell out the ã24,000 a year to send my kids there. (or to Andover or Exeter in the US)
I've seen a bunch of movies in the evenings when I've been pretty bored. Those of you that know me are of course shocked that I haven't been going to the Ministry of Sound or Tantra to run some trim with my sick dance moves... I've seen Kung Fu Hustle (very funny), Wedding Crashers (kind of funny), Red Eye (bleh, more Russian terrorists?), Crash (overrated), and and Indian movie called The Rising (sorry, the Sepoy Rebellion doesn't lend itself too well to the musical format).
I also went to a book signing by Salman Rushdie. Security was surprisingly light. They didn't search my bag until I was within 20 ft. of him. I could have taken him out and collected the Ayatollahs $ 3,000,000... (and lived like a shah!?!).
Weird news of the day:
Mike Tyson as Grand Hetman AND lighting candles in the most important Orthodox Church in Ukraine? I think he just wants to be a Cossack.
In church
Hetman
Nonsensical observational interlude: Though I've read that Czech Republic is the most atheistic country in the world, it would be hard to beat the British. Nearly every one I've met has been highly irreligious. I think Jeremy Bentham, JS Mill, and Bertrand Russell intellectually battered them (being already traumatized by Henry VIII altering their whole metaphysical outlook on whim) and left them pliable for the likes of Richard Dawkins (and Douglas Adams warms them up as children). I was in Foyle's and there was a whole shelf of Dawkins, but only THREE books by Stephen Jay Gould. Now Gould was no friend of religion (he was in my mind the better evolutionary theorist than Dawkins) but at least he had an intellectually honesty about it and wasn't grinding his smarmy axe. Regardless, irreligiousity isn't something to ruffle my feathers per se, BUT the one thing that the Brits have retained from their years as champions of Protestantism is HATRED of the Catholic Church (And consequently... or maybe because they.. hate Hispanics, Irish, and Italians). The cab driver who brought me from Heathrow said, "I'm not religious one bit, but the Mooslims don't bother me at all so long as they behave. Now the Catholics, they're the biggest fucking hypocrites around. An EYEtalian can fuck his brother's wife and go to confession and he's right as rain." You have to respect theological insight like that. I've worn my Notre Dame shirt every day since (and it stinks). See if they'll let ME say all THAT on Nightline.
Anyway, as for my thoughts on the hurricane. It DOES look to the rest of the world that we got caught with our pants down. I think everyone knows we're trying to do something basically impossible in Iraq, so they don't really think we're weaker for it. But for us to seem so helpless in our own backyard? The images in the papers and news (and I realize they're manipulated) DO look like a 3rd world country. The general sense is that we're overestimated, a paper tiger like the Soviet Union was. I'm don't' really agree with that. Bureaucrats don't ruin a country with a strong Geist, certainly not to be found in Europe anymore.
I think the MUNICIPAL government in NO failed MISERABLY, and that the mayor is a scoundrel using to media to attack the federal government so he not only doesn't lose his own political career, but go down as one of the most ignominious politicians in our history (he shouldn't worry too much though... the whole Bush administration is right behind him).
That said, people have to take SOME responsibility. I don't know, but weren't buses made available for evacuation? Aren't there people who STILL won't leave? I'll have to wait until more information is forthcoming.
And since I haven't posted regularly-
Update of last week and a half:
Flight was uneventful. Knees were cramped. Stewardess spilled tea on my favorite jacked (it's white). Got housed. Pretty standard.
Its odd I moved into as being not too bad before. The Regent "Palace" in Piccadilly is a rathole. It smelled of mildew, there was a bloodstain on the pillow and the bed, when the toiled up stairs flushed, the sink would back up and I could smell it, and I got a rash (ok now you know I don't think any girls will read this). I stayed there for 5 days until my sister did me an AWESOME favour and booked me a hotel that usually costs $250 a night for $71 dollars a night! It is in Kensington right by the V&A and it's the sheez. Too bad tonight is my last night there and I can't get the same rate and... I still haven't found a place.
Finding a place is slow going. I don't know where I'm going most of the time, so I go to a lot of places that are really inconvenient (travelwise) or dumps. I have to go to the school accommodation office to use the computer to find the listings.. and I don't have a phone so it is hard to contact people. (thought tomorrow I'm going to see if I can get a shady store to unlock my old phone so I can get a pay as you go sim card) On top of all that, though I DO use email to contact them (which is slower of course) half the time the KCL email server is down (such as right now). Its frustrating, I just want to get somewhere and stop wasting time. But not in a $380 a WEEK 10 x 20 "studio" in Notting Hill (its not THAT posh of a neighborhood.. the bombers lived there)
On the weekends I can't do anything else b/c no one does anything resembling work here. So I went to Brighton and then to Windsor and Eton.
Brighton is like UK Myrtle Beach. I've never seen so many pierced and tattooed hooligans in my life. The beach is actually a pebble beach, and the pebbles are big. Think rock garden under the stairs in a 1970's decorated house. And worse, the hooligans are THROWING THEM. Since I had the misfortune to go on a bank holiday, it was packed. The water is also polluted and its not a good idea to go in. Despite all that, it was calming to get out of the city and sit on the beach. The heat and the breeze and the waves were synchronized to soothe everyone (almost...not the guys climbing the ~35 ft. pier and jumping in).
The main sights there other than the beach are the huge pier which has an amusement park at the end (what the pavilion in Myrtle SHOULD be), and the Royal pavilion. The Royal pavilion was a castle bought and extensively remodeled by George IV (who was quite a dandy) to resemble an oriental palace. It looks like an Indian mosque on the exterior, and on the interior the rooms have various (mostly Chinese) Asian themes. Victoria thought it was uncouth and sold it to the city which has kept it as a tourist attraction ever since. It IS kind of cool inside. I wouldn't mind having a 15 ft wide chandelier being held up by a 6 ft long dragon. But the decor is also a little perverse, not to come off as Edward Said, but it was dehumanizing... the little mandarins and Chinese courtesans....a game for the civilized Brits. Aesthetically worth seeing though... it was done by John Nash.
I also went to Windsor and Eton. Pretty standard tourist stuff. Windsor is cool... a huge castle on a hill.... the rooms are lavish, w/ beautiful furniture and art. I never thought I'd say this, but you've seen one palace, you've seen them all. There isn't much to be said that can't also be said about Buckingham Palace or the royal Palace in Brussels. The one exception would be the art collection which truly is amazing. There must have been a dozen van Dyck's alone. Not to mention several each of Rubens, Breugal, and Holbein. And to think the poor queen had to open up Buckingham to tourists to pay her taxes. :/
Eton on the otherhand is pretty unique. A high school older than any university in the US, with more famous alumni than Harvard. The chapel was built by Henry VI, and is pretty cool, despite being truncated due to his political problems. Once again, iconoclasts beat me to it, and so most of the paintings on the walls were destroyed by the Protestants. The tour was guided by a Mary Poppins-ish older lady who was truly in awe of the young boys who go there. She even took us off the tour into one of the medieval classrooms where boys had carved their names... Gladstone, Shelly, the Nepali prince who gunned down his family.. you get the idea. Still, I was impressed (perhaps too easily) by the culture there. They have their own sports, lingo, dress...and the educational opportunities are pretty impressive. I think people SHOULD graduate high school able to compose in Greek and Latin.. and SHOULD be proficient in several instruments. Plato would be impressed by that, if not by the snobbery. If I am ever in a position to do so, I would shell out the ã24,000 a year to send my kids there. (or to Andover or Exeter in the US)
I've seen a bunch of movies in the evenings when I've been pretty bored. Those of you that know me are of course shocked that I haven't been going to the Ministry of Sound or Tantra to run some trim with my sick dance moves... I've seen Kung Fu Hustle (very funny), Wedding Crashers (kind of funny), Red Eye (bleh, more Russian terrorists?), Crash (overrated), and and Indian movie called The Rising (sorry, the Sepoy Rebellion doesn't lend itself too well to the musical format).
I also went to a book signing by Salman Rushdie. Security was surprisingly light. They didn't search my bag until I was within 20 ft. of him. I could have taken him out and collected the Ayatollahs $ 3,000,000... (and lived like a shah!?!).
Weird news of the day:
Mike Tyson as Grand Hetman AND lighting candles in the most important Orthodox Church in Ukraine? I think he just wants to be a Cossack.
In church
Hetman
posted by akrites @ 4:35 AM
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