You Can't Make Mistakes

And now the real work begins.

Well America, as a collective, we chose well. We were faced with the most important set of decisions that we have made in a long time and we made the right ones. I, for one, am thrilled. I actually cried out of relief this morning.

While President Elect Obama is positioned to be able to effect change in a significant way, what with being backed by a Congress which will support the directives of the new administration, there are a few things which didn’t go so well.

Michigan passed the stem cell research and medical marijuana ballot initiatives, both of which are positive things for people who suffer debilitating and painful diseases, and their respective ratifications are a step away from maligned points of view that these things stand in moral opposition to goodness and rightness. They will hopefully help many people.

I said above that we chose well and we did, for the most part. However, in this time of celebrating immanent changes for the better and positive steps forward, it is important to point out our failings, lest we forget ourselves. I would like to point out, for instance, that—at the time of writing—in Florida and Arizona have decisively banned gay marriage, and Arkansas has decisively banned adoption for gay people. California is still uncertain at this time—with only 20% of the polls reporting results from their ballot initiative—though it doesn’t look good there either, which saddens me.

Update 21:51 EET: With 95% of the precincts reporting, California has passed the gay marriage amendment ban. 52% Yes, 48% No.

Why are these things important? First, they indicate that even in seemingly liberal or progressive places, conservative/bigoted rhetoric is still very powerful in convincing people to make decisions about social issues. Second, at a time when things are looking up and we have a new golden-boy—who actually speaks in a positive way about gay people in his rhetoric—we obviously still have some work to do.

What do I mean by this? I mean that we have reached a new echelon of civil rights issues. We now will have a President who is part of a formerly legally disenfranchised—currently practically disenfranchised, in many ways—section of the American populace. This being the case, we now have an even greater chance to chip away at the bigotry which still lives in our law code. This was less possible over the past 8 years during a time when the dominant political thread was busy pandering to the very people who support that bigotry in their daily lives.

We have a chance now to rectify the mistakes that were made in the past 8 years, and in some cases 16 years—let us not forget that it was President Clinton who signed the Defense of Marriage act into law. The current President Elect is quite a bit more progressive than President Clinton was, but it won’t mean a hill of beans if we don’t actually progress. We can only hope that in the coming years, we will be able to overturn these bigoted state constitutional amendments and have a new kind of civil rights revolution in which people are treated equally again under the eyes of the law.

Yah, I couldn’t believe it either.

I read this article this morning in which it is reported that former Bush administration crony Karl Rove indicates that he believes the current presidential candidates go too far in their negative ads.

I had to sniff my coffee to make sure that I hadn’t accidentally make myself a steaming cup of moonshine this morning.

Karl Rove taking a moral stand? The lack of morals exhibited by Mr. Rove during his time as a simpering toady for President Bush indicate the following possibilities:

1. Mr. Rove is in fact an android and never had the “Morals” switch flipped, so is therefore unable to exhibit moral behavior.
2. Mr. Rove suffered an accident as a child in which he had to choose between selling his soul to the devil or watching a loved one die. He watched the loved one die and then ate their soul before the devil could get to it. All the while he thumbed his nose at that dull-witted, not-too-quick-on-the-evil-draw devil.
3. Karl Rove is from another planet where the very human-like inhabitants have no use for morals because when one of them dies they are just replaced by an identical avatar which grows up out of the liquefied remains of their corpse.

In any of those cases, it must also be the case that now, Mr.—too-little-too-late—Rove is attempting to appear more human by criticizing others for being rotten bastards to one another.

The effect is unsettling. Now where is that moonshine…

Nothing is impossible to find.

Hacker stryde.hax posted this article yesterday which indicates that he believes that he has found evidence of the underage status of one of China’s medal-winning Olympians. Additionally, he has requested that screenshots of the offending documents be posted on people’s blogs. In the interest of net-neutrality and in the face of censorship, here they are:

The name of the Olympian in question is: He Kexin (何可欣)

You can read more about how stryde.hax found these spreadsheets at his blog. There would be need for further verification of this, of course. Or, the could be an instance of sensationalist frenzy which would result in some people losing face. Either way, there you go.

because it is none of your business.

I just heard retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis indicate—with regard to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy employed by the U.S. Armed forces for discriminating against homosexual service-people—that “when you raise your hand to swear to defend the Constitution, you are giving up some of your rights to free speech.”1

Really?

I don’t remember seeing that in the constitution. Listen to the full discussion on the Diane Rehm Show.

———

1 Diane Rehm Show, 24 July 2008

Well, I’m shocked.

This article in the Washington Times week takes a whimsical look at a new piece of technology which is of interest to our very own Department of Homeland Security.

Briefly, this device would replace the boarding pass with a simple bracelet worn around the wrist, including the following:

1. Your personal information
2. GPS capability to track your movement and the movement of your luggage throughout your flight.
3. A high voltage shock device to shock the wearer into immobilized submission, should it be necessary.

Seriously. Look into it.

Don’t forget to check out the video.

Look into it and then write your congressman, your dog-catcher and any other public official you can think of.

I for one would rather die in a fiery plane crash than slapped with a shock collar every time I get on an airplane. Terrifying. Looks like I will have to start looking more seriously into transport on freight ships for overseas travel.

Hopefully DHS is reading this and bumps me up on the list.

Any thoughts?

[Update: This made the Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me news quiz this weekend. 12. July 2008]

Curious, thoughtless sentencing practices

This article outlines a recent series of arrests here in Egypt.

Let’s just take for granted that the the persecution which is outlined in the article is pretty terrible. Let’s take for granted that these were citizens minding their own business and not hurting anybody. I am not really interested in all of that. What I am interested in is this: if you are going to sentence gay men who are HIV positive for a crime, how can you justify sending them to prison?

It just doesn’t seem like a reasonable solution: place these men in an environment in which they will regularly be raped by prison guards and other inmates, exposing all participants to HIV infection.

Now, as my roommate pointed out—quick, she is—because these are high profile cases, this will likely not be the case: everyone will know that they are positive and go nowhere near them. “Or they will more likely just be beaten to death,” I replied.

Our favorite part was the condition that these men would be required, after the end of their sentence, to sleep at the prison, from the hours of 6 in the evening to 6 in the morning. This would, ostensibly, ensure that they are not out in the night performing acts of debauchery. Right, exactly, because you can only have debauchery at night. Silly me, I had forgotten.

It seems that a better solution to the problem of HIV is education and taking precaution. The current solution everywhere in the Middle East and North Africa—remaining quiet and pretending like there is no problem—seems to be failing. Not in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia though: they have a zero HIV/AIDS infection rate! [Only 0.002 percent lower than Egypt!] Amazing! I wish that they would publish more information about how that has been accomplished. It certainly isn’t through education on safe sex—I base this conclusion anecdotally on the information provided to me by Saudi friends back Stateside, data which was not collected in a rigorous study.

In Egypt as well, when applying for a student or resident visa, one must supply the negative results of a blood test for HIV. If the blood test is positive, then a visa will not be granted at all. I assume that this is done in order to keep that low, low infection rate down. Maybe it works, to some degree, but it certainly could be augmented by a wider effort at sexual education. Public service announcements even.

Don’t even get me started on public service announcements.

Maybe things are changing though. I recently noticed, during a stocking-up trip to Carrefour, that there were now a wide variety of condoms available on the general merchandise shelves. This is new. It use to be the case that if you wanted to condoms in Egypt, you had to go to a pharmacy and then sort-of trick the pharmacist into selling them to you. You couldn’t be too overt about why you wanted the condoms—as if there is any other use for them: “These make great water balooons!”—and simply explain that maybe you needed them for a friend. Often, pharmacists would—after putting an individual through the embarrassment of asking in the first place—simply indicate that they did not have them, and direct you down the road. This is apparently changing. I have now seen them in plain view in a number of pharmacies, especially in expat parts of town, and then at Carrefour, which is obviously marketed toward expats. However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t Egyptians buying them.

I would call this a step forward. Another step would be transparency about actual infection rates for STDs, but I feel that this might be a long way off. In the mean time, a word to the wise traveling in Egypt: keep it in your pants.

All that fuss over nothing

Well, no strike actually happened. The Egyptian security forces prevented it from even beginning:

Egyptian security forces prevent planned textile strike
International Herald Tribune – Sunday 6 April 2008]

And so it goes.

The weird thing about all of this—or maybe not-so-weird—is that there was definitely a sense of foreboding in the air last night. The streets were deadly silent. I live on one of the busiest streets in my district—generally full of traffic, and relatively loud until late into the night—but last night, there were points when there wasn’t a car in sight in either direction for several minutes at a time. The air smelled very different as well: free of exhaust. The last time I smelled air like that was at the beginning of Ramadan last year when the entire city went quiet for a day or two.

The expats were all abuzz last night as well, making sure that they were registered with their respective embassies and preparing to hunker down in case of some sort of conflict, laying in food and supplies in case it became suddenly unsafe to go out.

In the end, nothing happened, which I suppose shouldn’t come as a surprise. Strikes are illegal in this country, so of course the government would step in to prevent one. This certainly would not serve as the catalyst to any sort of angry uprising. But, the important thing was that many people thought it might, which is why everyone stayed inside last night. I hadn’t realized until last night just how clued in everyone is to whatever the current climate happens to be.

Though it is still relatively quiet today on the streets—possibly because of the now-approaching sand-storm—I still feel like the air is tingling with some excitement. I wonder what will happen next.

There is a bit of excitement going on in Om al-Dunya right now

Lately, I’ve been hearing from my friends in the States and from some foreigners here that Egypt is big in the news these days. So, I decided to do a little digging, as we don’t really get a lot of local news here. As I searched online, there were loads of stories being published as I wrote. This news is pretty hot, apparently. There are things going on: right here, right now.

A warning to readers: You’ll have to do a bit of reading, as I am not going to give synopsis of these stories, only commentary and reflection. Keep in mind also that I am not an expert, I am simply scoping out what is in the news today, just like any other foreign lay-person might, whether living here or abroad.

In Egypt, Upper Crust Gets the Bread
[Washington Post - Saturday 5 April 2008, Page A01]

Egypt mulling ways to curb price hikes: minister
[Trading Markets (Xinhua via COMTEX) - Saturday 5 April 2008, 12:35 GMT]

It is a common thing to hear about the growing divide between the wealthy and the poor here. It is sort-of universally recognized here as a continuing trend for which there seems to be no salve. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

Child workers in Egypt a growing problem
Centre Daily Times (AP) – Friday 4 April 2008

Child labor, as we might conceive of it in the States, is readily extant here. One of the most common forms of it, at least to my eyes, is that of kids begging for food or money. Many times, if I am watching, I will see a “street kid” dispatched from a location where there is some older person—generally an older woman, in my experience—sitting. It is a pretty efficient system for getting money off of people, it would seem. I usually see it in places where there are loads of foreigners living or working. Is it child labor? I would say so. It is probably necessary, economically, for some families’ survival? Very likely.

Egypt: A call for a national strike
[Los Angeles Times - Saturday 5 April 2008, 16:21 GMT]

Egypt warns against general strike
[AFP - Saturday 5 April 2008, 13:45 GMT]

Egypt’s Interior Ministry warns against participating in a general strike
[pr-inside.com(AP) - Saturday 5 April 2008, 17:03 GMT]

I was recently told by some friends here that there will be no strike, as the government agreed to the demands of the textile workers mentioned in the above article. They were seeking an increase in their food allowance—which is calculated as part of their wages—to correspond with increasing food costs. I was told that this concession was enough to persuade the strikers not to protest, but apparently this is not the case. There is apparently a sit-in planned at the aforementioned textile plant.

Price increases which squeeze the already meager means of an increasingly marginalized poor working class do cause civil unrest, which could lead to these types of strikes becoming more frequent.

Egypt detains 28 Islamists ahead of council vote
[Reuters, South Africa - Saturday 5 April 2008, 12:23 GMT]

Egypt arrests 34 Muslim Brotherhood members ahead of elections and general strike
[International Herald Tribune (AP) - Friday 4 April 2008]

And a follow-up:

Egypt arrests 10 more Muslim Brothers
[International Herald Tribune (AP) - Saturday 5 April 2008]

Always a thorn in the side for the Egyptian government, the Muslim Brotherhood is often on the receiving end of scrutiny, surveillance, and police round-ups—especially right before any type of elections or political action, i.e.: a strike. This is of course relatively transparent to the members of the group. Their website indicates that they endorse the upcoming strike, though they are not the sponsors.

Egypt outlaws protests in places of worship
[Reuters - Saturday 5 April 2008]

A law such as this could be seen as related to continued efforts to quell interest in the Muslim Brotherhood as well as further instrumentalization of religious rhetoric to mobilize people.

Egypt hunts for terrorists in Sinai
[Jerusalem Post (online) - Saturday 5 April 2008, 16:44 GMT | Updated 16:47 GMT]

On another front, Sinai—always a popular place for tourists—is apparently becoming the hottest new place to plan terrorist attacks. The Egyptian government is apparently cracking down on this type of activity in order to preserve the always important tourism industry in Egypt.

Egypt’s Indian Bet?
[Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt - Thursday 3 April 2008]

World-class reception in Egypt to mark the merge of AWB [Al-Watany Bank of Egypt] with NBK [National Bank of Kuwait] Group
[AME Info - Saturday 5 April 2008, 10:10 GMT]

Last but not least, there is a great deal of wheeling and dealing going on in Egypt these days. Huge foreign investment deals are being struck, which makes this a particularly inopportune time for civil unrest related to economic troubles. Such events probably don’t look very good to investors.

There is a great deal going on in Egypt this weekend. Surely, I am not the only person living here who has an interest in what is happening around me. Joel Beinin—Director of Middle East Studies at AUC—published the following article this afternoon, which nicely sums up the current situation:

Underbelly of Egypt’s Neo-Liberal Agenda
[Middle East Report Online - Saturday 5 April 2008]

Well, we’ll see what happens. I’ll be sure to let you know.

It’s a big week for gays in the news, folks!

Check out these stories and breaking news from the past week:

1. UK reconsiders asylum for Gay Irani teen

   This represents progress, I think. It is indicative that the government in the UK is thinking outside the box a little bit in recognizing that problems exist where they exist.

2. US representative Kern stories:

   Associated Press Story

   You Tube video

   Needs no comment from me.

3. Stuff White People Like #88: Having Gay Friends

   This is actually true. And the source is reliable.

I was surprised, while researching this post, to find that if you type the word “gay” into google, #4 on the list is gayegypt.com. This has something to do with the fact that I am in Egypt right now, but it is interesting nonetheless. Who can say what it means? A study needs to be done, but this will be difficult. Perhaps some industrious sap who studies communications can do this for us.

Does anyone have any recent stories in this vein to report?

She’s a Reporter Now!

Much in the same spirit of the following video—which we regularly see on one of the satellite channels from Dubai—my dear friend and flatmate in Cairo has recently become a reporter for our old standby hometown newspaper: the Kalamazoo Gazette.

For clarification: the woman in this commercial piece has dandruff, and then gets some Sunsilk shampoo—which cures her of dandruff—after which she suddenly—and mysteriously—becomes a reporter and then interviews famous blonde people. For further clarification: Stacey does not have and has never had dandruff. And anyone who says otherwise is a damn liar.

You can view her recent journalistic debut by following the link below:

Iraqis Grateful for Health-Support by Stacey Pollard

I am currently trying to convince her to be a foreign/local correspondent on this humble blog. That would take some pressure off of me to blog constantly. Then maybe everyone wouldn’t bay for my blood after a month of not blogging. We shall see.