Dept. of Transit: Some Notes from Heathrow

Some musings I recorded during a meal of haddock, chips and Guinness at Heathrow:

TRAVEL AT HEATHROW inevitably involves what feels like an inordinate amount of walking and transportation to some other region of the sprawling complex that is London's largest airport. This may very well be the result of the stress of travel as well as the fact that airport diagrams, like subway maps, are not drawn to scale, making very large distances appear to be easily negotiated.

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My waitress has checked on me twice in the past five minutes. Does the proximity of a particular space to another space that is transient in nature make the first space transient by association? Applied to my meal, am I expected to leave this restaurant, which is a rather warm and fairly inviting environment, more quickly and is the service to be more harried than it usually would be, because I am in an airport?

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This next month is going to be painful...this next week, too, though the distracting power of work might save me from the full brunt to the melancholic torrent that will no doubt flood my psyche in the coming days. its deluges recalling the tears shed before my departure; its winds redolent of the cool breeze that rippled through the air as I left Budapest, yet a hundred times stronger. O, the violence of raw memories.

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Can't quite place that woman's accent (the waitress)...cute though...

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The PA system is butchering Don McClean's one, and essentially only, hit song.

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Watching darts is like watching poker or bowling. What makes a sport worthy of popular attention, anyway? Who watches darts (besides those held captive in overpriced airport restaurants)?

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Beveled corners on the vinegar bottle. Hmmm...

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Mar-le-na! I just met a girl named Marlena (presumably: that's the name given on my bill.)

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I'm about to go to a country of loud people. A country where people tote their over-priced tri-band cellphones in hip holsters and who don't mind the fact that answering calls on wireless earpieces makes them look schizophrenic.

Dept. of Departures: Another D-Day

I OFFERED A countdown as I prepared to depart for Budapest in August of last year. Some seven months later, I find myself nearing another date of departure: that when I am scheduled to lug my baggage to Ferihegy, and board a BA flight bound for Heathrow, where, provided that my bags aren't lost in Terminal 5, I will change carriers and fly to Boston via American. I almost wrote that I would be going home via Heathrow, but using the word "home" doesn't sit that well with me at this moment. Budapest has been home for the past seven months and it is not without a sense of melancholy that I leave this home for another. Of course, I'm looking forward to seeing my family for the first time in what has been the longest stretch I have spent without their company. But I'm deeply saddened by having to leave here so many friends, so many to whom I've grown close over the past months, and so many others to whom I wish I could have grown closer.

D-4 H-4 M-2

Dept. of Outspoken Celebrities: From His Cold, Dead Hands

CHARLTON HESTON'S ACTING career made him an icon of Hollywood, with roles ranging from the Biblical, as Moses in "The Ten Commandments," to the modern, as a hard-boiled detective in "Touch of Evil," to the futuristic, as an astronaut in "Planet of the Apes."

Of course, as Tom Lehrer noted, show business and politics often go hand in hand, and, in that tradition, Heston's legacy is not only cinematic, but also political. Heston's allegiances varied over the years as were the causes which he supported: Heston supported Kennedy and Johnson in their Presidential bids, as well as Nixon and Reagan in theirs; he was a staunch supporter of the civil rights movement, though one who disapproved strongly of affirmative action; he opposed McCarthyism and the Vietnam War; he supported gun control legislation after the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, but, some 30 years later, assumed the presidency of the NRA.

Heston certainly deserves to be remembered for his mark on Hollywood, as well as his political work for both conservative and progressive causes. But, as a progressive, I find his insistence that the Second Amendment entitles him, as a citizen, to keep his firearms until pried from his "cold, dead hands" detracts greatly from my memory of him. However, it is still with some sorrow that his death finds me. Indeed, the death of an apparently conflicted man makes for conflicted memories.

He was 84.

Dept. of Evenings Lost: A Brief Musing

MARCH 28, 2008
GÖDÖRKLUB, BUDAPEST

BEARING AN UNEATEN piece of cheesecake on a plate, a man wends his way toward the bar, slipping through the crowd of 20-somethings, some swaying to the the live music, others swaying on their own accord. Still others, having only just arrived, stand stolidly, peppered throughout the masses, sipping on their glasses of Dreher and Tokaji, waiting for the alcohol to percolate into their veins.

Dept. of Botched Pronunciation: Whatever

DURING THE DEBATE between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Cleveland on February 26, Tim Russert of NBC asked Clinton about the presumptive president-elect of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev. Stumbling over his name, Clinton let Russert do the pronunciation for her, saying after his correction, "whatever." Not exactly the approach I'd take to the name of the next head of state of Russia...

For Clinton and anyone else interested, the correct pronunciation is /mʲɪˈdvʲedʲəf/. (I originally thought the second "d" was more like /ʤ/, but it turns out there's considerably more nuance to the pronunciation, with the palatalized consonant /ʲ/, which I can't find any examples of in English.)

Dept. of Common Knowledge: Survey says...

HARVARD RECENTLY RELEASED the results of a public opinion survey on the term "socialized medicine." Guess what? Respondents who were Democrats said they approved of "socialized medicine" as they understood the term. And Republicans? Republicans thought of "socialized medicine" as a pinko-Commie-freedom-hating scourge. See the self-evident data for yourself. (I jest of course. Critical analysis of the study forthcoming, along with some other interesting public opinion data on health care...)

First Votes in New Hampshire

IN DIXVILLE NOTCH, the small town with the distinction of being the first in New Hampshire to hold primary elections, the 17 registered voters out of the 74 residents cast their votes at midnight Tuesday. Reuters reported the results: Obama took seven of the ten votes cast for Democrats, with Edwards taking two and Richardson one; McCain led the Republicans with four votes, Romney received two, and Giuliani one.

While I don't miss national news coverage in the States,...

...I do miss the sports coverage somewhat. Football (soccer for the non-expats) and cricket highlights don't interest me quite as much as basketball and American football, which do get occasional coverage on CNN International. But I find myself turning to Boston.com more often than not, as the coverage that I'm only really interested in is that of the phenomenal success Boston teams now enjoy. With a 2007 World Series win for the (Red) Sox, a perfect regular season for the Pat(iot)s, and a league-high win-loss record for the C(eltic)s (most recently extended by a 92-85 win over the Pistons, who handed Boston their last loss in mid-December), it's a wonderful time to have even the slightest interest in Boston teams. We'll see in the coming weeks how the the C's fare and if the Pats can pull off an undefeated postseason.

A "Hundred Years' War" (or longer) for the 21st Century

Center for American Progress devoted today's Progress Report to John McCain's comments to MoJo that it would be fine for U.S. troops to spend the next 100, 1,000, or 1,000,000 years in Iraq, suggesting that the problem in the current conflict is not U.S. presence per se, but the number of U.S. casualties. (I'm trying to imagine an Iraqi SOFA for the next 1,000,000 years.)
Such a stance neatly avoids the criticism of plans for withdrawal from Iraq that such a strategy will allow insurgents to wait for the departure of U.S. troops before unleashing more violence in the war-torn country, but it also presumes that the U.S. can eventually effect a reduction in troop casualties. With 901 U.S. troop casualties in 2007, the highest of any calendar year in the occupation so far, I cannot imagine a situational change in Iraq sufficiently dramatic and soon that would reduce troop casualties and sway public opinion, which currently supports the withdrawal of troops from Iraq within the next two years. This is to say nothing of Iraqi civilian casualties: Iraq Body Count (IBC) estimates that 22,586 to 24,159 were killed in the conflict in 2007. Perhaps McCain doesn't value Iraqis quite as much as U.S. troops; maybe he would support a revival of the Three-fifths Rule for body counts. That way, he could report that only 48,704 civilians have died since the beginning of the occupation. (For those of you with out a calculator handy, IBC estimates the actual number to be somewhere between 81,174 and 88,585.)

From Iowa to New Hampshire, Big Mo for Obama

A CNN/WMUR/UNH poll shows Barack Obama with a commanding 10-point lead over Hilary Clinton among New Hampshire voters in the day before the primary in the New England state, a significant development as the two have been locked in a dead heat for the days following the Iowa caucuses.

Another War to Wage

"Progress slow in war on cancer," declares a headline in this morning's Boston Globe online. Adding that to the list of endless war, we're now waging:

The War on Terror
The War on Drugs
The War on Poverty
The War on Want
The War on Cancer

Some sects are also waging:

A War on Guns
A War on Christmas
A War on Journalism
A War on Democracy
A War on English

Et cetera, ad nauseam...

Can't people find a better a metaphor than war? While I could advance arguments against the metaphor on moral grounds, I prefer to say that further "wars" should not be declared simply because doing so is too damn clichéd.

Hot Zone: Uganda

WHO reported an outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Uganda November 30. The outbreak, in the Bundibugyo District, features a new species of the virus, which has a 31.4% mortality rate thus far, with 16 fatal cases of 51 reported.

Hot Zone: Sudan

The UN reported concerns surrounding a possible epidemic of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) in central Sudan. CDC data shows that RVF, a zoonotic viral hemorrhagic fever, has a mortality rate of 1% among humans, with considerably higher rates among animals. However, according to WHO reporting on the current epidemic, of the 436 human cases reported in the states of White Nile, Sennar, and Gazeera, 161 have been fatal, a mortality rate of 36.9%.

Apricots in the White House

The Hungarian word denoting "apricot" is "barack."

A colleague sent along Andrew Sullivan's thoughtful article from the Atlantic on Senator Obama. My response, as written to my colleague, appears below:

I haven’t read anything of Andrew Sullivan’s in a while (despite having his blog bookmarked), so it was a pleasure for me to read this. His ability to approach issues of great contention in a rational manner that defies the traditional ideologies in American politics has always impressed me. (He is, if you didn’t know, a self-declared conservative libertarian.)

Overall, I found the whole piece enlightening, early references to “Islamist terrorism” notwithstanding. I was particularly taken with Sullivan’s recapitulation of Obama’s his view of faith as both a spiritual and intellectual exercise; his view of his religion not as a source of values but as an institution that reinforces values already instilled. With all the other points Sullivan raises, Obama himself rises above the traditional ideologies in American politics, ones, as Sullivan pointed out, have been intensified with the perceived polarization of the US over the past 50 years.

Sadly, an index of polls that examine public opinion of candidates for the Party nominations puts Obama a little over 22 points behind Clinton at 22.9%. And while trial heats show Obama currently leading all viable Republican opponents, Clinton leads in such heats as well with greater margins.

Regardless of this, Sullivan has me solidly in Obama’s camp. (I hereby withdraw all my previous calls to draft Al Gore.)

For your consideration...

...a few new photos on Flickr, hopefully with more to come over the weekend.

Mr. Hill Goes to Pyongyang; U.S. vs. the World on Cuba; Mr. Roh Goes to Pyongyang; Pirates!!; Eight Years Left for MDGs; "The path to hell..."

Some interesting stories in the news over the past few days:

First is the story of Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill's visit to Pyongyang, working with his counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, to remove North Korea from the U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Removal from the list was one of the major demands of North Korea during negotiations surrounding the disabling of a nuclear reactor used to produce weapons-grade plutonium. North Korea was placed on the list after its involvement in a terrorist attack on a South Korean airliner in 1987, which resulted in 115 deaths. The only subsequent act of terrorism registered by the U.S. State Department is the abduction of 13 Japanese nationals between 1977 and 1983, five of whom were repatriated in 2004. The status of the remaining eight is a point of contention between North Korea and Japan, with the former claiming that they are dead and the latter demanding proof of the deaths. Japan also maintains that there are at least an additional three abductees held by North Korea, while a 2002 report by a North Korean defector maintains that, overall, 70 to 80 Japanese nationals had been abducted. Additionally, South Korea maintains that over 400 of its nationals have been abducted by North Korea.

An interesting note: Also on the State Department's List of State Sponsors of Terrorism is Cuba, due to its providing safe harbor to fugitives and maintaining relations with other State Sponsors of Terrorism. However, some in the international community feel that this case is overstated: on Tuesday, an overwhelming majority of UN members adopted a General Assembly resolution calling for the U.S. to end "commercial, economic, and financial embargoes" against Cuba.

Hill's visit is the latest in a series of stories over the past week involving North Korea. The Christian Science Monitor aggregated analysis of a Pyonyang summit on Tuesday between North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea.

North Koreans were in the news on Wednesday as well, with the crew of the North Korean Dai Hong-Dan regaining control of their vessel after an attack by pirates of the Somali coast. U.S. warships in the area responded to the crew's distress calls and treated members of the crew for gunshot wounds sustained during the altercation with the pirates. U.S. Naval forces are continuing to monitor the situation of the Japanese-owned tanker Golden Nori that was commandeered by pirates on Monday.

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Always having trouble keeping track of those pesky intergovernmental development objectives? Wish you could see how the international community is progressing towards its stated goals on reducing poverty, reforming education and health care, and promoting equality? Google and Cisco have a solution for you!

The UN teamed up with Google and Cisco to develop an online tool to track progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set out in the Millennium Declaration in 2000. (N.B., a timer in the upper-right corner serves as a sobering reminder to visitors that there are less than eight years before the target for achieving the MDGs.)

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Finally, a story that reminds me that "with mere good intentions, hell is proverbially paid." Members of the French NGO Zoe's Ark are currently held by the Chadian government after they attempted to abduct over 100 children and resettle them in France. While the stated goal of the organization's mission in Chad was to averting starvation among many child refugees from Sudan, upon arriving, representatives of Zoe's Ark started addressing the needs of orphans, and then providing medical attention to wounded children, and finally collecting children for resettlement in France. However, a closer examination of the "good intentions" of the French "humanitarians" raises doubts about the mission of the organization and has given rise to charges of human trafficking. Indeed, the French families who offered to host the African children had paid over 4,000 USD in cash to Zoe's Ark. Furthermore, the group of children comprised many children who were Chadian, not Sudanese, and who were not even orphans. Several international groups active in Chad and Sudan have decried the actions of the French organization, citing concerns that the incident detracts from the legitimacy of humanitarian efforts of well-established international non-governmental organizations.

A new set...

...of photographs, taken in Slovenia, are now on Flickr.

50 Years of Doctrine and Practice on Displaced Persons Compressed into Three Pages i.e., ...

...a fact sheet on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, prepared for my course on International Policy Practice.

Maybe they just like Mariah Carey...

Sitting this afternoon in the CEU cafeteria, I turned and glared at the speakers blaring the broadcast from a local radio station. So jarring was the music that I continued to stare for a few seconds before resigning myself to eating my lunch. But even as I sat, slowly digesting my greasy midday meal, the thought remained in my head: it is far too early in the year for "Santa Claus is Coming to Town..."

What good are all those pixels if nobody can appreciate them?

I've been posting photographs from Budapest on my Facebook profile, but have been frustrated with the site's limited storage capacity and functionality. Enter Flickr, an online community where photographers of every ilk can share their work. (O, would that it were owned by Google and not Yahoo!...integration with Blogger would be a breeze!)

Issues of ownership aside, I've posted my first set of photos on Flickr, in glorious, full-resolution black and white. (There is a single color shot in the set which I'm quite fond of, actually, though I find my favorite is the dark, brooding image of István Bibó.)