Alternate Vision

"Sunny, hot, dry, idyllic, ironic, communal, erotic, RVs, dust, lust and all that you cannot imagine." - ktGrnz's response on the burning man. I secretly hoped to make it this year but gave up hoping a few months ago. Sitting here, dreaming about a parallel universe only because this is all I can do, semi-helplessly, knowing that there are other friends who are on their way....

" At the real Triple Border, though, everyone may be a spy, or a would-be spy, because everyone is there: the Russian mafia, the Mossad, the Nigerian mafia, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Hong Kong triads. A rule of gold in the underworld is that Brazil is neutral territory and not subject to turf wars; everyone is entitled to join the fun (technically Ciudad del Este is in Paraguay, but it does business as a Brazilian annex via the Friendship Bridge). There's no chance of catching one of Ayman al-Zawahiri's lieutenants slipping $100 bills into the G-string of dancer Harlem Roux at the Casino Parana. He - and his al-Qaeda affiliation - would be spotted in minutes.

General Craddock grudgingly had to admit that the Pentagon has "not detected Islamic terrorist cells" at the Triple Border, nor anywhere else in South America, for that matter. But he'll keep trying. If he dropped by Ciudad del Este's mean streets, Craddock would hear a lot of Mandarin - but not Arabic. He would see every cheap plasma set in every audio-video shop tuned to Lebanese TV - or Al-Jazeera, hardly a terror ID. In his search for preemptive strikes, he could try the Condominio Mesquita - which, as the name attests, is a condo in the shape of a gold-painted mosque (they would love it in Peshawar). But he would see no Hezbollahs in fake Nikes chowing an empanada and sipping mate with Jet Li lookalikes. " - The Roving Eye

This won't stop the U.S. government ofcourse. Its just a matter of time before we see yet another military base down there. As Pepe describes in part 2 "Lost paraguayos: the Yankees are coming" , the 'when in doubt, invade' mentality will only mean a continued deprivation of funds where they are needed most in South America - education, infrastructure and health; that and more ideological crusades.

this tag business is new to me and I typically don't blog like this. but I figured its awfully rude to be tagged and completely ignore it. Besdies, I could use a break from the world of analytical target cascading. So DC, here goes..


Tagged by Chitgo.

I am thinking about...
what I'm gonna eat for lunch

I said...
'if it was meant to be, it would have happened'

I want to...
get back to hand drumming. badly.

I wish...
I hadn't gotten smeared with someone else's blood on the futebol field yesterday.

I miss...
Austin

I hear...
Steve Winwood's ' higher love'

I wonder...
if we will ever conquer the climate change problem

I regret...
having only one mexican martini this past weekend in Austin

I am...
getting bored with this tag thing already

I sing...
only steve winwood songs these days.

I cry...
silently

I am not always...
honest

I write...
cos its therapeutic for me

I need...
a knee brace. badly.

I should try...
everything atleast once

I finish...
in style....always

I tag...
Krai, Rishab, Juan, Mel, La Contessa, Octavio, Williams, Jesse, Duylinh and the Drake

its ok to be a perfectionist and not be perfect

what you lack in natural talent you make up with discipline

I realized how common it had become only in mid-July when M., a childhood friend, came to say goodbye before leaving the country. She walked into the house, complaining of the heat and the roads, her brother following closely behind. It took me to the end of the visit for the peculiarity of the situation to hit me. She was getting ready to leave before the sun set, and she picked up the beige headscarf folded neatly by her side. As she told me about one of her neighbors being shot, she opened up the scarf with a flourish, set it on her head like a pro, and pinned it snuggly under her chin with the precision of a seasoned hijab-wearer. All this without a mirror- like she had done it a hundred times over… Which would be fine, except that M. is Christian.

If M. can wear one quietly- so can I.

I’ve said goodbye this last month to more people than I can count. Some of the ‘goodbyes’ were hurried and furtive- the sort you say at night to the neighbor who got a death threat and is leaving at the break of dawn, quietly.

Some of the ‘goodbyes’ were emotional and long-drawn, to the relatives and friends who can no longer bear to live in a country coming apart at the seams.

Many of the ‘goodbyes’ were said stoically- almost casually- with a fake smile plastered on the face and the words, “See you soon”… Only to walk out the door and want to collapse with the burden of parting with yet another loved one.

During times like these I remember a speech Bush made in 2003: One of the big achievements he claimed was the return of jubilant ‘exiled’ Iraqis to their country after the fall of Saddam. I’d like to see some numbers about the Iraqis currently outside of the country you are occupying… Not to mention internally displaced Iraqis abandoning their homes and cities.

I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever know just how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis left the country this bleak summer. I wonder how many of them will actually return. Where will they go? What will they do with themselves? Is it time to follow? Is it time to wash our hands of the country and try to find a stable life somewhere else?

-Baghdad Burning

Sara offers enlightening perspective from across the pond in the middle east; tid bits of information that you probably didn't know about Lebanon which shed unique light on the circumstance there. Hassan and Mohanned, two of my Lebanese buddies growin up, would often show me pics of Lebanon, their girlfriends and their familly back home over a shawarma and coke after our daily bastketball games at the Lebanese Oil Barron's home, down the road from where I grew up. They always talked about wanting to travel to America to study but could never dream of affording it. So, instead they returned to Lebanon. Sadly, I've lost touch with them since then. There is no telling where they are or what they are going through. My thoughts are with them and all those in the Middle East who bear the brunt of war..

Label: Atlantic Jaxx

Tracklisting:

A		Belo Horizonti (Dub-Duo Samba Vibe) (12:15)
B1		Belo Horizonti (Brix Edit) (7:32)
B2		Belo Horizonti (Rumbledub) (7:47)

I love the fact that I can pick up a handfull of LPs for under 15 bucks, from down the street. Pittsburgh needs better record stores. Am on the look out for anything by The Orb. Figured I'd start with house before picking up faster stuff. I've been spending a bit too much time on Mihir's turn tables. Actual turntables make CDjs look like child's play. Once I amass a decent personal collection and improve my skills I can then worry about a DJ name...

me: so how do you find the weather here?
Aida (the new Iranian PhD student in my lab) - so much better. plus, I can wear what I want to.
me: oh thats right, back home it would be different
Aida: yes, if I were dressed like this back home, I would be probably be in jail by now.
me: so you enjoy this freedom?
Aida: in some ways yes. Its nice to be free to do what I want and be independent.


She tried a latte for the first time and loved it.

appa = my dad

sushila says:
in my dining room, and my balcony are 2 huge tubs collecting AC water for which the Ac's are run all the time
sushila says:
now this dining room one is taken later though a tube from the outside to the small balcony back doors, where there is another contraption collecting water
sushila says:
not satisfied with this, appa invaded our neighbours house upstairs, and telling them that to prevent their AC water from tapping continuously on our AC producing a noice, we need to put a tube
sushila says:
so a tube was let down from their bedroom AC to a tub in one of our bathrooms through the window
meghna says:
ah so you're steeling thier water also?
sushila says:
then another tube from their dining rm AC to the same tub in our back balcony
sushila says:
we have tubs placed on wooden platforms across half the bath tubs so water is transferred from the collections points to them and to the kitchen, from where they use it for the washing machine and also to wash vessels
sushila says:
I was so livid, as there are huge tubs all over the house
surya says: haha

Consulado de Mexico en Philadephia

Do you get some sadistic pleasure out of keeping your visa applicants in perma-tension? If your office was in the same city I lived in, I would gladly make my way there in person. But its a bit hard to do this because you are over 6 hours away, know what I mean? Why won't you pick the phone up? Or atleast clear your inbox so I can leave a message? How bout them faxes I sent you? Its been over a month now, and I can't seem to reach you. If I had all the time and money in the world, I would be more than glad to make the journey and just wait outside your office until my authorization is through. But I've got a job too you know. Knowing your infamous style, you will call me the night before my flight and let me know that my authorization is through. That worked three years ago when the consulate was a 20 min drive away. Its a bit different when your a couple of cities away. Ah your such a tease...

even under the reigns of a meagre student budget, we tend to accumulate crap. Odds and ends that evolved beings like him have to come realize we don't need. But yet somehow, somewhere guided by our subconscious mind we tend to accumulate material possessions that determine our happiness. I won't play devil's advocate here and argue the alternative viewpoint which is that some of these material possessions do infact make life easier and that in certain situations pragmatism should override idealism. I've ceazed this opportunity of moving houses to purge the unnecessary, often unused articles I have aggregated over the past year. But what I do hold on to is dear to me and if possible hope never to part with. Artwork, books, drums, kitchen stuff and a few other basic essentials that I would take with me to the grave if I could. But the rest is all transient and to which I bear no emotional attachment. That said, I'm no extremist or maverick. In this post modern milieu where materialism battles minimalism, I've never picked a side and stuck with it. Instead I find myself traversing those blurred lines of neither here nor there, an odd mix of simplistic living vaguely characteristic of the beat generation with subtle undercurrents of materialist tendencies. Its like being caught in between two worlds- one which uses material possessions to fill spiritual voids and the other which seeks existential truths to do the same.