la freak. the phonetic pronunciation of africa in french.

hello peoples,
i have been trying to upload pics for quite some time! but it never works out. here i actually managed to upload a few, and quite humorously, two are quite funny of stefan. one is of stefans feet at fish river canyon, nam and the other is stefan in a waterfall in algeria, south africa. and one is of us and some are of my love asmaa.
hopefully more will be coming soon!!
love, love, love from la freak.

Anger

“No one else “makes us angry. We make ourselves angry when we surrender control of our attitude. What someone else may have done is irrelevant. We choose, not they. They merely put our attitude to a test.”

— Jim Rohn

im not sure if this is too much repetition,

but its helping me study.

so yeah!

Dave Barry Turns 50 - Dave Barry (Excerpted)

People who feel the need to tell you that they have an excellent sense of humor are telling you that they have no sense of humor.

You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 11.

People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

You should not confuse your career with your life.

A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

Your friends love you anyway.

we all know the reason

“Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason.”

—

Unknown

Leslie Early - Your Car Music Video from Leslie Early on Vimeo.

makes me miss having a car, and the freedom of movement it gave.

i would just love a road trip right now.

Morvai on prostitution and trafficking in Hungary

This video is of Christina Morvai, former law and gender professor

at ELTE university in Budapest, and now head of Jobbik, the

neo-nazi party of Hungary as EU MP.

If she wouldn't be in Brussels, I probably would have asked to

interview her being a specialist in my research area in Hungary,

and here she is speaking on my topic at the EU.

Trafficking victims need a voice...I just wish it wasnt also

the voice of Jobbik.

But hey, it's one positive for them in my book.

again?

i wrote the last post.

and then biked from the coffee shop in pest to my grocery in buda. and as im biking home with 3 liters of juice i see..what do you know..some lost germans. i think some higher force is goin to help me learn german this summer. so im explaining them in german how to take the bus through the tunnel and then we start chatting about bearrrrrlin and it fades back into english. again. i think this summer i will pretend like im from...france? no somewhere else...hungary perhaps is good since they assume that anyways, these tourists. "wow, you have such good English!" um yeah im american. that is my new plan...ich spreche keine anglish. no english! hungarisch? that needs help as well. then i came home. and our latest couchsurfer is..sitting on the couch. and his name is steven and hes from oklahoma. and suddenly i realize i have never met anyone to my knowledge from oklahoma. and he is great. very bright, full of americana and american history. oklahoma...."oklahoma was created when the americans invaded the land that they had just sold to the people who lived there. and they shot a lot too." thats pretty much american history in a nutshell. he is a bright southern boy, saying i suppose, and i reckon, ya understand, and its cute as a button. and showing my finnish roommate videos of toby keith, young buck - the essence of southern rap, bob dylan- the best american singer-song writer ever, and explaining the story of john henry and oklahomas greatest, the 'beginning of american music,' woody guthrie..'this land is your land...' he said quite some things i disagreed with, but it was very interesting to hear someone else talk of america and the south. esp someone a bit well traveled and well thought out, i might say. then he called beyonce a 'musician' and i was like whoa. calm down there. singer and dancer will suffice. and now im trying to study but hes talking about american foreign policy and the middle east so its very hard...ahh back to work..again.

why

another long day of research and my feet are tired and budapest wont stop raining on me when i have to walk the most. im waiting for my metro to the coffee shop to get some badly needed coffee and write and some man asks me if i speak english and if this metro goes to the city center. i say yes, and then i dont say anymore. and then he walks away and i realized i could have been more helpful but i didnt feel like it at that moment, but then a moment later i did, but oh well i just kept staring at the wall.

then i hear a bunch of loud german men and i turn around and this man is part of the loud german men group. we all get in the metro when it comes and i sit close to them because i plan to eavesdrop on them. but i feel it is okay for me to eavesdrop on people speaking german because im not nosy, and i dont care what they are saying (i mean not really..) but i just need to practice my german comprehension and i dont often get the chance and my biggest summer goal is to be semi-fluent before the end of this summer (or rather highly conversational.) so im listening in on them and then i hear them talking about the USA but then i cant understand what they are saying and I wonder if they are saying bad things and now i actually care about what they are saying, and think its funny how people talk in foreign languages and dont seem to ever predict that someone else might understand. they all try to jump out at the wrong stop and then i had to intervene and i said nei, nachste halt (next stop). and then they looked a bit startled, and said oh ja, nachste halt? deak ferenc? and started talking in german but then rolled into English before i could respond and i wondered why the conversation so often rolls back into english like its at the bottom of some steep language hill. then i tell them to get off, and they ask me where kiraly utca is and i try to explain but they are all loud and its crowded and bustling with awkward map movements so i say just follow me and ill show you. so we wander out, 11 huge german guys following me, getting lost and wandering off like elementary schoolers but the one who is guiding the group is really nice. he had a whole itinerary printed out, everyday and night planned, ask we passed godor i told him to go to balkan beats on sat night although he had the dokk club planned. i had never heard of this bar, but it was on the island next to margaret island which i heard has prostitution so i asked him if it was a strip club and he was like heavens no! there are no strip clubs on the itinerary! ... our wives see this you know! and we laughed. and then we stopped and i told them they had to turn here without me and suddenly im standing in the middle of this huge crowd and they are all listening and i felt like an awkward tour guide without an umbrella. and im explaining they should go here and there. and one says where are u from? and i say florida. and he said University of Florida? and Im like um yeah..you too? (he sounded american) he said no, im from dusseldorf like the rest, but i went there, i got my MBA there. and we talked about gainesville and the gators and how UF has this sort of cheesy 'the gator nation is everywhere' slogan but i had no idea how true it would be until i left. i meet gators everywhere and i mean everywhere. its crazy. they were all adorable and tried to get me to go to the bar with them. no no no, (be strong margaret) i have my MA research do REALLY soon, im off to the library. and then i said freut mich cause it means nice to meet you. but i said it to 11 men at the same time, and way out of context i think, and they just sort of smiled, i dont think they got it. then i walked off in the rain with a big smile. i like sharing love for gainesville with random people on the street in budapest. people like to feel understood, and share things they feel and love. and i like to feel random connections with absolute strangers. and that seems to happen to me all the time, and you never know when it will turn out to be your best friend. so now im procrastinating from writing on my thesis. the ngo im working with just got really excited about it, and told me they would 'publish it everywhere.' wow, pressure. to work!!!

In modern usage, sophism, sophist, and sophistry are derogatory terms, due to the influence of many past philosophers.

A sophism is taken as a specious argument used for deceiving someone. It might be crafted to seem logical while actually being wrong, or it might use difficult words and complicated sentences to intimidate the audience into agreeing, or it might appeal to the audience's prejudices and emotions rather than logic; e.g., raising doubts towards the one asserting, rather than his assertion. The goal of a sophism is often to make the audience believe the writer or speaker to be smarter than he or she actually is; e.g., accusing another of sophistry for using persuasion techniques.

A sophist is a user of sophisms, i.e., an insincere person trying to confuse or deceive people. Sophists will try to persuade the audience while paying little attention to whether their argument is logical and factual.

Sophistry means making heavy use of sophisms. The word can be applied to a particular text or speech riddled with sophisms.

I didnt know that there was one word to describe Fox News.

Another chance meeting

It was one something pm.

I have a draft of my thesis due tomorrow.

I'm feeling awfully stressed, trapped inside on another beautiful spring day, when I should have been playing capoeira in the park, or out with friends.

I decided to head to the corner store to grab some more things for lunch.

I arrived at 2:05, it closed at 2. Oh well. I stand there in the sun a moment, depressed about returning to stare at this computer again.

A small short very old woman, dressed in a soft brown suitcoat, and a knee-length green and blue plaid pencil skirt, with white Newbalances, summons me in Hungarian. Once again, one of the millon replies, I say nem madyarul. English, Deutsch?

She began to speak german, telling me its closed and the opening hours. I replied that I know this, but then I didnt have the words in german to explain that I was still hanging out in front door of the grocery store door for no reason.

What am I searching she asked?

Well, thats a loaded question.

After my pause, she started speaking in English.

Where am I from? America! she said. She lived there for 48 years.

I told her I only lived there for about 23 years. She asked me what I'm studying.

I said prostitution and human trafficking.

She looked disgusted, and very confused.

Why are you studying that? Why?

I said I want to help the women. Why not?

She said Oh! I thought you were studying how to be a prostitute, or teaching women how to prostitute. (Oh, the youth today...)

I laughed.

We ended up talking for an hour and a half out there in the sun, about many, many things that are quickly slipping away from my memory.

I'll just repeat a few here.

She was 90 years old, or almost. "My birthday is in 2 months, if I make it. You never know."

She said she left Hungary in 1946, when the Russians came. They were after her father. They took all his possessions, and he escaped with only a suitcase of what he once had. She was 16 or 17. She had never come back. Lived in Austria, and Germany, and the US, but her husband died 20 years ago in the New York subway. Left at 830 in the morning, and by 1030 the police called her and told her (How a 90 year old woman can remember all these things is amazing to me. I told her this. She told me she never smoked, and she prayed a lot.) She became alone in New York, and had some high school friends still in Hungary so she came back to live out her old age. She lived up a hill 40 stairs high, and said she liked better going up rather than down.

We chatted about many things, but of course mostly about countries, the ones we lived in, the ones we loved, and what we thought of all the others. Hungarians, Austrians, Swiss, Americans they are like this... they are like that...

I prefer to avoid speaking in this way. This conversation was exceptionally different as there was some sort of language barrier, but most profoundly an age barrier, with the result that we spoke from two completely different belief systems or paradigms.

When speaking of nationalities, I try to say for example, "Most Americans" or "Some Americans" but still some people get all huffy and say you can't generalize, and I agree you can't. You never can. But you have to be able to talk about things, if you couldnt generalize you could barely speak. I find myself repeating: "We both accept that generalizing is wrong, and we can't do it, and with this shared belief, let us continue our discussion..."

It seems the only way. I don't believe that all Americans hold even one shared characteristic, or even most, but there are patterns that we can speak of and discuss, with tolerance always on our shoulder.

Then she started to say things about Russia, as if it was some man or woman she once knew. Russians are terrible, they are horrible. Maybe there are some good ones. But it is a horrible country, full of horrible people. I understand perfectly that she has reasons to hate Russians, many people do. But are they reason enough?

I tried to present the opposing view, you cannot make such generalizations. Have you seen Russia on the map, can you even imagine its size? Do you know any Russians personally?

You are speaking of the Russian government, not the Russian people. You cannot speak about an entire nation this way. She didnt say it, but she thought I was naive and ignorant. She told me I was American, and we didnt know much about the world, in terms of history and geography. We are famous for that, we both agreed. She lived there, she knew. I couldn't really dispute her there. She said we didnt know, I didnt know what the Russians did to her, or the rest of the world, and that so many other people feel this way. I tried for awhile to gently try and show her why this is dangerous, and an unacceptable, irrational way of thinking about the world. I told her the government is not always acting out the will of the people, for many people I'm sure did not agree or even know about their actions then, and I know many who dislike their government today.

I could sense that she was getting a bit upset. And the last thing I wanted to do was make a 90 year old lady upset on a hot, sunny street. And what was the point? Was there any point in trying to change her mind now?

I really appreciate old people, and their experiences. I wish had more time to meet them, and talk with them here.

While working door to door, fundraising for an environmental NGO in Florida I had the opportunity to meet many elderly people who were hanging out at home when I came knocking. The conversations I had there in Florida, had many parallels to the one today. Some of the elderly I spoke with held views that I consider backwards, certainly outdated, and unacceptable, racist, sexist, you name it. They would shock me with their views. They think the young generations are messing things up, and doing things wrong, they find us shocking and unacceptable.

Well, so what? This is the question that pulsed as I walked away.

We have the power now, and the younger generations will always continue to get it.

The times they are a-changin.

In some dimension, my opposition to some of her thoughts made me 'see change', and truly believe that society is progressing, based on the fact that certain attitudes and generalizations such as these are commonly viewed as unacceptable. (Yet sadly many young people still hold them.)

But for me, for some reason, how she feels is still extremely important. I see value in it, it has this importance that I cant explain, that I need to know. I need to understand why she feels this way, to change the future.

She told me that she prayed a lot, for 1 and a half hours a day she calculated. That is why she lived so long. She told me that she prayed for countries: Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and the US especially. She told me that she prayed for her family, and herself. She told me that she prayed for the church. She told me that she prayed for the next Pope, that he would be white. Not because she has anything against other colors, like black, but they just think differently.

This time I didn't say anything. I just nodded. Just listen and learn. Seek to understand.

I told her to pray for the Russians, so that they could be better people. (lol.) She laughed, and said she does. But there are still good countries, and bad countries she said. Good and Bad. One has good people, one has bad people. You cant change that. Like the Serbs, she said, they are just bad and terrible people. The Swiss, they are good people. They let 10,000 Hungarians come in, and other refugees too. They are a small and nice 5 million. I told her that they were nearing 8 million. She absolutely refused to believe this. She told me maybe six, but this was not possible, it was closer to 3 or 5 million.

But anyways she said they were very nice, the Swiss, very good people, but a bit boring. I agreed, oh yes, very, very boring. (HAHA!)

Her husband is buried there, she will be buried there too. Then she remembered that you can only be buried there for 35 years, and then they dig you up and move you somewhere else. I said where do you go after? She said she doesnt know. She said she studied abroad in Lausanne in 1938....

Her name is Rowney. We exchanged numbers. She gave me her home number of course, and the hours of which she would be available to answer.

I told her I wanted to meet her again, and hear about her experiences. She says she eats at the cafe on the corner every single day between 2 and 3 pm.

I told her to call me if she ever needs anything, like milk.

She says she doesn't drink milk.

Okay, well if you need butter then, or anything. I live right down the street.

Hopefully I will see her soon, and the paradigms will clash again, though next time I will keep mine more to myself. I can't even imagine what she might come to say if I start to agree with her.

I think I will invite her to dinner. She cannot cook for her hands hurt.

I would like to invite some Russians as well...

A Health Care Story: my thoughts tonight.

A Health Care Story

Tonight after leaving the library at 10pm I went uptown, North Pest, to pick up my bike where I left it at a bar on Friday night. I grabbed some tacos first and then it was already 11:30 so I tried to take my bike in the tram because I just had a lot of tacos, was very full, very tired, and had really sore capoeira legs, and didn’t feel like riding across the whole city back to central-south Buda where I live.

I had heard that you can’t take bikes in the trams, so I contemplated whether just to bike home, it was a nice warm night to go along the river. Well, I tried the tram. And then I wondered why the tram was taking so long to go. And then I see the driver, who had left his little safe haven driver seat, and come out just to tell me, very politely in Hungarian to get off the tram, which I understood by him pointing at the still open door, and all the rest of the people watching in the tram probably understood by the language. Cool. So, I guess I’ll bike then.

Minutes later I was flying past the tram which was going very slow over the bridge under construction with the wind in my hair, crossing my island Margit Sziget. Soon I was heading south on the Buda bank towards Szechenyi bridge, still aglow until midnight. Then I saw a person, who seemed to be wearing a head to toe red pimp suit, lying on the sidewalk and who appeared to be setting up his camera to take a picture of the river, the problem was there was a stone wall in the way. I thought this strange. I kept peddling. Then my crazy conscious kicked in and I thought what if this person is hurt, and I don’t stop to help. I really felt such a strong obligation to go back, that I was doing wrong. And really I don’t care what the rest of the world says, we have an obligation to help each other. No Maggi, youre being crazy and overanalyzing shit, he’s just taking a picture, if you ride back by he’ll look at you weird in his red pimp suit. It’s probably just another drunk homeless person sprawled out, what are you going to do for them, you cant even speak Hungarian, you’re going to get wrapped up in it. Just mind your business, you have so much work to do.

I stopped, I looked back. It was far. No, not that far, pretty far. Kind of far. Goddamnit, youre wasting time! (surprise) What the hell, just go. It wont hurt.

There is blood all over her face. She is lying flat on her back, and not moving. I start to freak out. I don’t know Hungarian 9-1-1. I don’t know Hungarian period! God damnit you should have learned your lesson from France! Is she dead? Is she alive? Oh my God. I drop to my knees. ‘Hello, Hello!’ She opens her eyes, there is blood all over the left side of her face, all over her left eye. I slow down, try to calm down, speak slowly. nem madyurul. nem bazilik madyurul. (dont speak hungarian) angulul? Angulul? Do you speak English? Aaannnglish? She doesn’t respond. She can’t respond. She is trying to sit up, she sits up. she is wobbling and very unstable, whats happened to her? Im afraid she is going to pass out any second and slam her head on the sidewalk. She just stares at me. Im still freaking out, whats going on with her head? There is blood everywhere, all over her hands and face, and she is smearing it, so confused. What do I do? I start going through my phone, need a Hungarian friend. Call Zoltan, he doesn’t answer. Try to find another that I know well because its midnight now, call Szabi, know he is reliable and will answer. A girl comes jogging up. Please help me, do you speak English? She does. Whats Hungarian 911? You know I don’t know she says….106 I think? She tries, it doesn’t work. Szabi doesn’t know it either, whats with these Hungarians? He looks it up, its 104. Nice jogging Hungarian girl tells me that the woman is very drunk. We call the ambulance. The woman is speaking a lot now, telling us not to call an ambulance, she is fine, where is oktogon, can she go there? (this is what I got out of the Hungarian) What is her story I wonder? Does she have a family? She is a nice looking woman, dressed all in red, with nice jewelry, clean clothes, a nice looking purse laying next to her which signified she wasnt robbed, she's clearly not homeless. What is she doing passed out unconscious drunk with blood all over her face on the street at midnight? She must have fell. I ask the Hungarian girl if she will have to pay a lot for the ambulance. I don’t want her to have to pay a huge fine, a huge fee for it (but what else could I do, take her home with me?)

Shes looks at me weird. No of course not. You know we have a system here. I don’t know how to describe it. I pay, we all pay. We pay every time, we pay with every check, from what we work. Everyone pays. And then no one has to pay, no one has to pay for ambulance. Its no problem. She wont have to pay. Only for certain big surgeries you must pay. Why? Where are YOU from? (sidenote: this is not the first time ive had this conversation, or gotten this look. by this point, i cant even count how many times its happened. and frankly, it makes you realize some things.)

Im from florida, I always say florida, not USA, only rarely has that ever needed clarification anyways. And usually people ask where in the USA, so with florida we can just skip that question. or Maybe im a statist.

And you have to pay? she asks.

Yes, we have to pay. If we don’t have insurance, good insurance, the right insurance, if we haven’t paid our huge yearly deductible. Sometimes we can have to pay a lot, it depends 1,000 or up to 10,000 dollars from stories I’ve heard, depending on the situation.

She looks at me horrified, aghast. If she was American she probably would have said “really?!" But she just looked at me with that face and I said yes, and I was sad and ashamed a bit.

In Hungary, a country 20 years fresh out of socialism, getting to experience democracy for the first time in a long, sad history of foreign rule and oppression and failed revolutions, they can make it work. im not going to pretend its perfect, but its different, and it works. It is not ‘depending on’ here, there is no depending, you are just covered. Everyone is just covered. Everyone pays alittle with every pay check. Whats so wrong with that? Are you going to call them socialist? Now? Because that would be comical, like I find it every time the Republicans spout off that narrative in the USA. This narrative has worked so well, surprisingly well (or perhaps not) in a country that knows absolutely nothing of socialism besides that “it’s bad,” and now whatever lies the Republicans tell. In a country that has known socialism such as Hungary they would say you were wrong, or stupid for saying universal health care defines socialism. Because you would be. Universal health care is not socialist. Or every European country would be. (sidenote: even if it was socialism, many older Hungarians, as well as in other newly independent states of eastern europe, they say they preferred life under socialism anyways.)

The ambulance guys carried her off and even thanked me in English. I stayed and chatted with my new friend. Shes getting her phd in biology at semaelas? We agreed late night jogging was dangerous, I told her jogging was boring, and she should come climbing. She said she tried it once and would love to. So I made a new friend. And felt good for going back. And come to think, I have gone back so many times and never felt bad for going back. ( one time in the paris metro I went back and a man was crawling up the stairs during rush hour, and looked like he was dying. seriously dying. and no one even paused, just dashed around him as he was trying to pull himself up the stairs, and everyone was pushing me and looking at me and judging me as a silly annoying person for trying to stop and help, there is always some bum appearing half dead in the paris metro, just move it along woman. I caved to societal pressure this time. I stood in the high pressure flow from people moving up and down, and nearly walking all over this man, I tried to think, I tried to have the what are you doing maggi conversation that normally ends in the right choice, but I couldn’t think in the chaos. And I too carried on. I knew that probably he wouldn’t respond anything comprehensible to my questions, like most mentally ill homeless people. Or even if he had, I always had particular problems with bum French. And then what, I sit and talk with him an hour, buy him a water? Call the police, and wait for hours, only to have them look at me like a huge idiot when I called them about a near passed out drunk bum? Yet, I still regret that time. It was the wrong decision. I never got used to seeing the homeless in paris or any city, who look like they are suffering so much, so lonely, sad, cold, drunk, alone, crying, yelling, angry, suffering, and ignored, avoided, forgotten, blamed, probably always blamed for everything. I cannot help to ask whose child are they, what is their story? Instead of hoping that I someday will get it used to it, I should rather hope that I never will, I guess my humanity is strong for lasting this long.) Im glad I went back tonight. That woman is probably someones mother, and someones sister, definetly someones daughter...anyhow she is someone, and thats enough for me.

Anyways, yes. Ive been wanting to write something on health care for awhile, Ive been wanting to write things on a lot of things for awhile, but instead I spend my days writing about methodology mostly and whatever else CEU demands.

According to the most recent update at the New York Times, the Democrats are now only waiting for Obama to sign “their landmark legislation.” We, as Americans, are still debating, we are still arguing, we are afraid, we are angry, we are skeptical, we are proud, we are happy, we have hope, we have the whole range of emotions. My position: whatever we have coming is better than what we had before. I had a realization today that later I will share. The Republicans tried to block this bill. They really, really tried. Its been a long nasty fight, that’s been consuming our minds, and our media to the point that were all sick of hearing about it. In my opinion, the Republicans told a lot of lies. I don’t want to be generalizable, I don’t want to be nasty, I want to be as fair and honest as possible, and stick to my morals and not ideology, (but I don’t have one of my own anyways.)

But the Republicans lie a lot. Since I have been conscious of politics the Republicans have been lying. To be fair, the Democrats lie a lot too. They have their share of problems. But they don’t lie as much, and they don’t go as low, they have more self-respect, more respect for the Republicans and more respect for you and I as citizens in general.

Lets look at two special examples of Republican lies, as proof of why we should not believe their fear provoking stories about health care and Obama right now.

Number one: Anything and everything surrounding the war in Iraq. Lies abound. This is not ‘my’ argument, this is not questionable anymore, not even among political science scholars. You can find books at your local store or library. If you would like proof I will download and send you some articles off Jstor anytime you need. Well, I think we have accepted this for the most part by now. No Republicans are still in my face, telling me that Bush is a good man, trying to protect America, and this war was in self-defense and to liberate the Iraqi people. Did anyone really try to ignore the correlation between a president whose entire career was working in oil companies, as chairman, on the board of directors, before his presidency and the fact that we invaded an oil rich country in the middle east on false pretenses? The Republicans told us a lot of lies, to scare us to believe them, to follow their way, to do what they want, so they can get what they want. And oh did they get what they want! The Bush Administration gave the Halliburton Company (Dick Cheney’s ‘former’ company) 27 billion in contracts, including a no-bid contract to restore oil production in Iraq. (Frank Rich reporting on Dick Cheneys new book for the NYtimes http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/opinion/14rich.html?src=me&ref=general) Twenty-seven billion. Our former president and vice president, Bush (the former oil baron) and Cheney (who it turns out owned a corporation who specialize in everything in defense, including oil production, surprise! Does it sound like a joint company to you?) decide to invade Iraq and walk away with 27 billion of our money. The biggest surprise to me at this point is the only place at the Times you find this is on the opinion page. Why weren’t we ever talking about this? Why aren’t we still talking about this? (Obama, hello, you told me you would talk about this. I know you are a good man, and want to move past partisan lines, you have tried, they wont cooperate, but lets not forget the past please. I still want justice.)

Okay, so I have two important points to make out of this. One: please do not believe what the Republicans tell you when it involves arguments based on fear. The lies could turn out to be in their interest, not yours. Two: please do not listen to the Republicans hypocritical nonsense when they talk about the big spending, socialist Obama administration, at least not until the former buddies of the last administration gives us our 27 billion back, not to mention the other billions spent on an illegal war precipitated on lies. Conservatives? Now you want to be conservatives? You wasted our money, blowing up nearly a million Iraqi civilians by some counts. Please dont tell me now that you want small government. Thank you.

Moving on:

Lets look at the 2008 campaign trail. I remember campaign ads saying that Obama was a terrorist, or had connections with terrorists. The Republicans were really trying to argue this, I still find it hard to believe. It probably doesn’t even shock you anymore, when you should consider that as an insult to your intelligence, including every other outlandish lie they told during this period. It was one lie to the next, at one point they were really trying to argue that he is not an American citizen and we cant find his birth certificate even though Moveon.org posted it on their website the next day. (Just to clear that up in case you are still in that camp, Factcheck.org run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at UPenn has posted NINE photos of it, for you to confirm. http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html)

But we Americans were smarter than that, we voted for him anyways, and he deserved it. We didn’t believe their lies. How can anyone believe anything they say?

Back to health care. I am grateful each day that the Republicans are out of power, but the lies are still coming, have been coming, coming constantly, from all angles, outlandish, insulting, disrespectful as usual. They are totally unhelpful, and unsupportive of the health care debate, totally self-serving, constantly seeking to instill fear into the heart of every American. This is how they have been winning votes and support for their party since as long as I can remember, why would they change now? This has become politics as usual for the Grand Ol’ party.

And finally! it looks like the Americans have made it past this too. Made it past their lies. So the big realization for me today was: If the Republicans are actively campaigning against this so strongly, and I have disagreed with their past policies so strongly, then this opposition is probably a good sign that there is some good shit in that bill!

Basically, if the Republicans hate it, it means its probably good for the common man. It means it probably doesn’t serve their selfish, corporate interests and might actually look out for our own. Of course, my father is sending me articles from the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal all the time, telling me look at what these businessmen are saying and this private, wealthy, for profit interest group is saying, and sometimes like you, I start to ask myself, what is in this bill, is it good, or bad, right or wrong? And you know, I don’t know. And to be honest, I don’t have time to read it, not right now. But if the Republicans are so damn against it, then the realities of history seem to be telling me that its because its not in their interests, which means its in mine and yours, and the rest of us who don’t own oil mines, or defense corporations, or otherwise have a lot of money so we can be in the club. So Republicans, your fear mongering has failed.

Health care is going through! I am really happy about it. I am writing a philosophy paper on social justice and health care at the moment, and once again ran across the same fact that has been the base of my longstanding support of health care reform in the first place. I believe the whole debate is based in political philosophy, and what are the obligations of the state to its citizens. Americans disagree on this fact, and with health care its easy to disagree because its very complicated, health insurance is not like other rights, such as the right to freedom of religion or to freedom of speech (admittedly these are not simple either but comparatively more simple), it involves far more complicated costs, questions, and decisions by policy makers. But the fact is that the USA is spending more on health care than any other nation on earth, even more than single payer or universal coverage systems where every citizen is covered. (ex: France, Hungary.)

I mean could the situation even be any worse, why are we afraid of change? http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/04/uninsured.epidemic.obama/ According to this article, there were 45 million uninsured Americans in 2007, with 1 in 3 Americans without insurance at some point in 2007, meaning 86.7 million people. 86 million, thats more than the entire population of France. But yet we are paying more for our care than these other countries. Whatever side of the philosophical divide you are on, something is wrong in this situation, if we are paying more and getting far less, this is call enough for change. And its coming!!!

Tonight I was reading a thesis proposal by a friend here at CEU who is writing on welfare policy in the US, and the recent health care debates. She includes a quote from notable scholar Theda Skocpol back from 1996, two years after President Clintons failed attempt at health care reform, that I should like to reprint here for you.

“ It is hard to believe that there was once a time –even in this century—when retirement was nearly synonymous with poverty and older Americans died in our streets. That is unthinkable today because over a half a century ago Americans had the courage to change—to create a Social Security system that ensure that no Americans will be forgotten in their later years.

I believe that forty years from now our grandchildren will also find it unthinkable that there was a time in our country when hard working families lost their homes and savings simply because their child fell ill, or lost their health coverage when they changed jobs. Yet our grandchildren will only find such things unthinkable if we have the courage to change today.” (Skocpol, Boomerang, 1992.)

Tonight, I would like to tell my statesmen back home in America, thank you. And I’m proud. I’m proud of your courage to change.

Banksy's-Exit Through the Gift Shop Film Trailer

Banksy is an extremely talented artist from the UK, who has a philosophy behind his work that is both groundbreaking and powerful in its view on what is "art" and the ownership of public visual space. In other words, he changed my whole perspective on shit. He believes we as the public, own the public space, we own the walls of our city, the bus stops, the overpasses, the doors, the metros, everything. And we have just as much right to contribute to designing and 'beautifying' our cities as advertisers do. He is tired of our space being infiltrated and drowned in the artificiality of commercialism.

I am really looking forward to seeing his film!

Happy birthday Stefan

Yesterday was Stefan's birthday.

I have no idea what my life would be like if I had never met him.

.., I know I probably wouldn't be playing capoeira if it hadn't been for him! Here's a video from 2006 when I came to visit him in Switzerland a year after we met, at an Openair festival in St. Gallen (some of you might be familiar with this :) and one of the first times I saw capoeira!

I can't wait to go to festivals this summer! Sziget, anyone?

A wonderful quote

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
Henry Miller
US author (1891 - 1980)

The Love Police

The Love Police!

This video is a compilation of some of their work, and there are hundreds of other videos you can check out on youtube as well.

Entertaining, thought-provoking, and inspiring.

"...what you need to do, is buy things you don't need.."

Thank you Anna and Lela!

Pictures for my baby sista

There's one. Hungarian Forest. (edited.)

Freedom? I'm just asking...

So, I've been wanting to try this blog thing for awhile, mostly to free myself from the 'confines' of Facebook and a large number of friends I haven't seen in ten years who might not feel like hearing my advocations/provocations to save the panthers in the Everglades every time they feel like checking out their wall again. But more because, living as an expat for these past years causes small, sometimes huge, explosions of maddening, rediculous, inspiring thoughts everyday that make me smile even as I'm riding the bumpy, crowded bus, or make my eyes well up with tears, or both at the same time, and that I feel the need to release from my long, sometimes shaky fingertips. But maybe its not expatism, maybe I was always like that.

Ah, sweet liberation for me and you.

So if you don't want to read this, then well, don't. Actually do, even if you dont. So it seems you're still reading...

and me, I'm still writing, and using punctuation, that's strange. I wonder how long this will last.

So here I am/we are. Together.

The reason that inspired me to actually get on here and do this was for a paper that I just submitted at 2:46 am budapest time for a class on news media and political power.

What? This is going to be boring you're thinking, and perhaps so.

But I've redacted it for you. And I appreciate any commentary.

The US and Russia are both democracies..., Roumeen Islam says in his book "The Right to Tell: The Role of Mass Media in Economic Development." In our comparative politics course we just spent two weeks trying to define democracy (if you’re thinking that’s way too long for graduate students, you're right), and using all the different characteristics of democracies to classify them into different types, so now when I hear anyone say ‘democracy,’ its become so thick in my mind it cant be thrown about anymore, especially when Russia is involved.

Roumeen also has a whole section about Freedom of Information, or FOI law, which brought back bitter memories of my FOI study for another class where I 'claimed' information from different agencies of the US Department of Defense and after 3 months of waiting (20 days is the legal limit) I received a link to Wikipedia as my response. ( I was claiming information on civilian casualties in Iraq, and any pre-invasion information on this topic, i.e. any paper documents on how the decision to not count casualties was made, how the government distinguishes between 'insurgent' and 'civilian'. This research is in the process of being published -yay!- but maybe I'll post it here soon.) So Wikipedia, eh? Now why didn't I think of that? Oh, wait I did. But I didn’t want ‘that’ public information, I want the public information inside your offices that you have yet to make public. Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz tells us that "the information gathered by public officials at public expense is owned by the public, and that using intellectual property for private use is just as serious an offense against the public as any other appropriation of public property for private purposes," and I agree.

These thoughts swung me back to democracy and what my sense of complete failure of FOI law in the US, meant for the US. In regards to FOI, the author says that the key question for FOI law in developing countries is how the country implements it, such as institutions designed and accountability measures. I would suggest that the author add as necessary a question number 2: do these measures actually work? And in what sense does the US get to espouse freedom of information, and claim its place as an advanced democracy if they don’t? And what can this advice lend to authors such as Islam who are advocating FOI laws, on how we can actually make them effective, when institutions fail? (And to be honest, that's a bit of the reason I'm writing right now. Government accountability mechanisms did fail, what will the public have to say?)

Next, we read a chapter from Klausen's "The Cartoons that Shook the World," about the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammed from September, 2005 that I'm sure we all remember. On pg. five, in reference to the Dreyfus affair in France of 1894, he suggests that “It is conceivable that the “cartoon affair” may one day end with some symbolic act of restitution to Muslims..” To be honest, I would not be happy to see this happen. I prefer not to believe that I can’t take my “Western” lens off, or that I’m a cultural imperialist, but this is 116 years after the Dreyfus affair, where the relevancy to Muslim extremism and cartoons is not even blatantly clear, and I would like to believe that we have evolved into a global 'civil society', or at least a Western one, that is not going to cede our human rights, and their underlying beliefs which we, as citizens, states and allies, have fought long and hard for, and that form the basis of our democracies, whether they be thriving, struggling or whatever state they are in, we believe in them.

My final point this evening to draw it all together: Leading up to the invasion of Iraq, Bush repeatedly proclaimed that the terrorists (i.e. Muslim extremists) were at war with our freedom. I'm pretty sure I remember the words "They hate our freedom."

If ANYONE was at war with OUR FREEDOM it was Bush himself (and friends, of course.) He was the one who went around telling us we were going to die, be afraid!, and stealing our rights and civil liberties from right beneath our eyes. Actually, he really didn't have to steal them, we gave them up. Iraq has WMD's and we can save our skins by letting you flout our constitution, and illegally wiretap us, and torture people, and break the rules that you are claiming to protect? It wasn’t “them”, but he sure used them well as his justification.

The effects of the “cartoon affair” can already be studied. Even Klausen notes they have had an effect on artistic expression, and freedom of expression, and I myself wrote another paper for Molnar's class on hate speech, and how the Islamic states in the UN are bringing forward measure after measure to protect themselves from what they see as religious defamation, without much or any concern at all for free speech.

A symbolic act of restitution for a cartoon? We might lose (we are losing?) the 'war on terror,' (if it was ever possible to wage war on an act), but lets not lose the war on freedom, whoever is waging it.

So, that is one excerpt, that is inherently tied in with a lot of other things I've been working on here at this wonderful university here in Budapest. There will be more blogginess soon. Some nice pictures perhaps...