There's every chance this blog will freeze into semi-perpetuity at midnight.
Technically the cable internet stops at midnight but if I post tomorrow morning, then the technician understood my plea in Russian and switched me over to another month. If I don't post, I need to brush up on my Russian - or else he does.
There've been many American posts here lately but this blog will be back to the UK shortly. I saw this America in the video [why, oh why are there only two minutes of the song?] and I saw the other America too. Interesting place.
There was no shortage of women who didn't like it when men were responsible for everything. They wanted to vote, they wanted to work, they are demanding a turn to take the reins.
Fine, says the modern young man, who has been subjected to 16 years of feminist propaganda that women are just as good - better, in fact - than men at pretty much everything.
Not being given to whining and being largely practical, the young man is happy to leave the responsibility to the women who are demanding it.
Who in their right mind would trade models, games and football for marriage to some controlling bitch who's as likely to leave you as not?
Why do I like that guy so much?
Late note for Welshcakes, who said not a lot but was not happy:
I've just got off the phone from the girl I love and every syllable she uttered went straight through me. She's everything I adore in women - soft to the touch, passionate, exotic, difficult, impossible, superior to me in intellect, a polyglot, impossible not to make endless love to, appreciative of men.
Plus she was tongue tied and at a loss what to say. That's nice.
I ... we ... can adore women and everything about you, from the way you move, the things you do with your lips, the sheer excitement in your presence, the way our troubles just melt away when you're in our arms.
We can adore you and do, including you, Welshcakes.
That's why we hate feminism with a passion - because the strident variety which has consumed one half of humanity is so divisive, so mindless, so designed to separate and breed hatred, so designed to turn men from the women we'd love to love.
To hate feminism does not mean we want to chain you to the kitchen or to dominate you and if you think that, it's so, so sad. Most men - the non-vocal types - want to meet you in a spirit of love, not in a spirit of prune-lipped oversensitivity as to whether we're going to infringe your personal rights as a woman or whether we acknowledge your supremacy.
In my head you are superior and I go back tomorrow to 150 of you in one room with me for four hours - yes, I think you're superior but do I need it shoved down my throat 24/7?
It's one of the key reasons I left to come over here because the "just past young" give ... and I give in return.
One: How can any person take a machete to another human being—whose only transgression might be his race, or his nationality, or his tribe, or his religion— and not be plagued with guilt and agony over the taking of that life? I can't understand it. I can't put myself in their shoes. The enormity of what I'd done would destroy me, and I could not live with myself.
Lost in the mob, the mob mentality, welcome evil - take your place in our hearts and give us our vital spark. Lt. General James N. Mattis, February 1st, 2005:
"Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. . . . It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right upfront with you, I like brawling. . . . You go into Afghanistan; you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”
Two: I am not consciously seeking to discover these linkages. When they reveal themselves I sit back, dumbfounded at the beauty and intricacy with which the unraveled had been originally woven. So too have I come to believe that there is no autonomy. No originality. We build on what has been.
We're not isolated from the rest of the world and yet, even walking amongst them, we can be brain dead:
Three: The people I met there seemed to always be shopping or sitting on benches earning money, for doing nothing. Apart from a group of horse-people (I later guessed I had been talking to a group of 13 year-old girls into horse riding) and a kind chap who gave me a free gun, little conversation was to be had. Will I go back into Second Life? Not unless someone I know goes too. Otherwise it's a waste of time and utterly mind numbing. Without 'Linden Dollars' you can do very little except roam the streets and buildings as though you are the last person alive on Earth.
Think. Feel.
The day we're satisfied with a life of acquisitive routine, punctuated by holidays abroad in tourist centres, we cease to be human. The day we become the mob, we've become automatons.
Are we automatons? A check list - if for us, it's more:
Sex, not love;
Revenge, not forgiveness;
Ego scaffolding, not humility;
Pride, not pleasure in achievement;
Cold cyberworlds, not forest and river;
Pleasure seeking, not pleasure in others' pleasure;
Expensive houses and furnishings, not beautiful homes;
Knee jerk reactions and cliches, not thinking something through;
... then chances are we're well on the way to becoming a global, bourgeois automaton. Not that there's anything wrong in this - every film cast needs it's thousands of extras, after all. Hey, let's get passionate here, for crying out loud! As WarrenZevon puts it:
I'd like to go back to Paris someday and visit the Louvre Museum Get a good running start and hurl myself at the wall Going to hurl myself against the wall 'Cause I'd rather feel bad than feel nothing at all
The clip below is the man who isolates himself from humanity as distinct from the one who loses himself in the mob, both just as bad. First, a portion of the lyrics:
Michael Jackson in Disneyland Don't have to share it with nobody else Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand And lead me through the World of Self
Splendid Isolation I don't need no one Splendid Isolation
By the way, there's everything in here - the direness of American talkshow TV, compressed into "slots", book-ended with "comedy" and Mickey Mouse, the dated and a bit dorky session musos who are still excellent musos, a fun interview with Letterman and in the middle of it all, observing it all going down - the flawed homo sapiens himself:
Adelaide - is Jocko's home really as bad as Sleepy Hollow, Geelong?
More than half of voters in an Adelaide newspaper's online opinion poll agree with Victorian Premier John Brumby - the city is a "backwater".
The poll had attracted more 2090 votes before 10am today, in response to the question: "Is Adelaide a backwater?"
Forty-eight per cent said Adelaide lagged behind the eastern capitals and another 15% agreed it was a backwater but said that was part of the appeal. Twenty-eight per cent said Mr Brumby was "just a jerk", and 6% based their defence on the number of major events on in Adelaide at this time of year.
The remaining 3% were unaccounted for by the News Limited poll.
Mr Brumby sparked a verbal joust yesterday when he said that unless Victoria pushes ahead with channel deepening in Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne will end up a "backwater", like Adelaide.
A guy breaks a glass in his kitchen and the bits go under the table. He doesn't pick any of the bits up because he's in the middle of some project and then he just forgets until late evening. Barefooted, he then goes to the kitchen for a coffee.
He's still extracting bits next morning.
Just before he goes to work, the jug containing the bit of Christmas tree the love of his life brought him and which was adorned with metal plasticky type baubles - the whole thing decides to fall from the window sill to the kitchen floor and bits of metally plastic go everywhere.
No time, he has to go to work.
Comes home, kicks off shoes and takes off socks - yes, you've got it - goes into the kitchen to put the kettle on. He's still extracting bits this morning.
Yes - it is me. This guy needs training wheels and a nanny!
Honest to G-d truth - overslept this morning and woke up at 9:11 a.m.!
Yesterday, I was explaining the U.S. presidential election system to my Min, as best I could, using yesterday's post but it was woefully inadequate when he started asking curly ones like:
1. Who are these electors? Are they the senators? Who chooses them?
2. What's the difference between a primary and a caucus?
3. Are these primaries and caucuses to select delegates for the Electoral College?
4. Why do they need an Electoral College? Why don't the people elect the President?
He's particularly interested in this because he has his own little election coming up over here and they're thinking of different systems in the future - Westminster, American, French and so on. Hope he doesn't ask me about the French.
So, if you're American, don't laugh at this piece, still in draft form, prepared for the Min and my students but please check it for accuracy. If you're non-American and were as much in the dark as I was, it might be useful. Of course you could look it up yourself but this is more summarized:
As everyone knows, the U.S. system is a series of checks and balances - hence the Constitution, hence the three way split of power - legislative, executive and judicial, hence the presidential election system.
The second thread running throughout is the traditional rivalry between constituent states and the desire to preserve states' rights.
As far as I can see, the presidential election goes through this procedure [reducing it to basics]:
1. Certain candidates emerge through the party system by wheeling and dealing and through attracting cash for the coming process - this happens in the year before the election;
2. The primaries and caucuses are used by the different parties, the two most important being the Democratic and Republican. within the 50 states, plus DC, to select delegates who will go to the party conventions later. Delegates are selected according to the methods the party decides it wants to adopt within that individual state - it's party business, not the state's [see below] - this happens from December onwards and the most important is Super Tuesday in February through March in the election year, when [currently] 22 states will select their delegates to the convention;
3. Conventions are held to formally select a party's candidate for the presidential election later that year but in recent years, they've largely been razamataz and everyone already knows the state of play. Not always though - there've been some surprises over the years. Each delegate attending that convention has basically "pledged" his or her vote to one candidate but only on the first ballot, after which they are "free".
4. Out of this come the various parties' choices for president and vice-president and these are voted for on election day in November by the people of the U.S., who are not voting for the candidate directly but from the people's votes, members of the Electoral College are elected and they vote 41 days later for president. It is therefore their vote and not the people's which elects the president and vp.
The two methods for choosing delegates to the national convention are the caucus and the primary.
The Caucus
Caucuses were the original method for selecting candidates but have decreased in number since the primary was introduced in the early 1900's. In states that hold caucuses a political party announces the date, time, and location of the meeting. Generally any voter registered with the party may attend.
At the caucus, delegates are chosen to represent the state's interests at the national party convention. Prospective delegates are identified as favorable to a specific candidate or uncommitted. After discussion and debate an informal vote is taken to determine which delegates should be chosen.
The Primary
In the early twentieth century there was a movement to give more power to citizens in the selection of candidates for the party's nomination. The primary election developed from this reform movement. In a primary election, registered voters may participate in choosing the candidate for the party's nomination by voting through secret ballot, as in a general election.
There are two main types of primaries, closed or open, that determine who is eligible to vote in the primary. In a closed primary, only a registered voter may vote. For example a voter registered as Democratic can vote only in the Democratic primary and a Republican can vote only in the Republican primary.
In an open primary, on the other hand, a registered voter can vote in either primary regardless of party membership. The voter cannot, however, participate in more than one primary. A third less common type of primary, the blanket primary, allows registered voters to participate in all primaries.
In addition to these differences, there are differences in whether the ballot lists candidate or delegate names. The presidential preference primary is a direct vote for a specific candidate. The voter chooses the candidate by name. The second method is more indirect, giving the voter a choice among delegate names rather than candidate names. As in the caucus, delegates voice support for a particular candidate or remain uncommitted.
In some states a combination of the primary and caucus systems are used. The primary serves as a measure of public opinion but is not necessarily binding in choosing delegates. Sometimes the Party does not recognize open primaries because members of other parties are permitted to vote.
Further notes on primaries and caucuses
Each state is given a number of delegates by the party machines, proportional to the state's population and each state has its own method of choosing delegates.
The Democrats use a higher ratio than the Republicans, which means they have more delegates overall. So from Colorado, the Democrats selected 61 delegates and the Republicans selected 40.
Some give all their delegates to the winner, some break them down by districts, and others dole them out depending on the percentage of the total vote each candidate receives.
Nowadays, all delegates are "pledged" to a candidate before they are elected to go to the convention. However, these pledges don't last past the first round and, after that, delegates are free agents. Prior to this, delegates elected on behalf of one candidate often went to the convention and made deals with one of the other candidates, essentially making the primaries meaningless.
Now, with pledged delegates, it is the conventions that are probably out of date as it has been a long time since there was even a second ballot at either major convention. (Compare this to the 19th century where at one point the Whig convention went through over 250 ballots to elect a majority candidate).
So when Bush won Colorado, what that means is that he got most of CO's delegates to the GOP convention to represent him.
The conventions are effectively over when one candidate gets over half of the total national delegates, which gives him a majority at the convention. That happened in March for both Bush & Gore, so the primaries after March didn't matter very much.
The delegates from each state meet at the convention to vote for the candidate they represent. They have a big party, wear silly hats, and hold up signs saying things like "Colorado for McCain".
Remember, the delegates determined in the primaries are committed to vote for their candidate only on the first ballot at the convention. After that, they can vote for anyone. McCain "released" his delegates to vote for Bush so that Bush could have a unanimous vote.
At the convention, the party delegates also write the official party platform.
The whole delegate system was intended to replace the "smoke-filled rooms" where powerful members of the party secretly chose a candidate. The Constitution doesn't talk about how party nominees are chosen, so every party can decide for itself. Smoke-filled rooms and secret processes are perfectly legal; we just use this primary process because people like it better.
A caucus, on the other hand, is a bunch of people of a political party who show up at a party meeting and decide, by whatever system they want to use, who their choice is.
The Republican Party uses a winner-take-all system in which the delegate or candidate with the most votes in a state's primary or caucus wins the right to be represented by ALL of the party's delegates at the national convention.
Federal law doesn't dictate how states choose their delegates.
The term caucus apparently comes from an Algonquin word meaning "gathering of tribal chiefs," and the main crux of the caucus system today is indeed a series of meetings.
In Iowa, the caucuses themselves are local party precinct meetings where registered Republicans and Democrats gather, discuss the candidates and vote for their candidate of choice for their party's nomination.
The Republican caucus voting system in Iowa is relatively straightforward: You come in, you vote, typically through secret ballot, and the percentages of the group supporting each candidate decides what delegates will go on to the county convention.
The Democrats have a more complex system -- in fact, it's one of the most complex pieces of the entire presidential election. In a typical caucus, registered democrats gather at the precinct meeting places (there are close to 2,000 precincts statewide), supporters for each candidate have a chance to make their case, and then the participants gather into groups supporting particular candidates (undecided voters also cluster into a group).
Again - the whole business is entirely according to how the party wants it to be - the government doesn't come into it officially.
The Electoral College
It may surprise you to know that Russia has a more direct presidential election process than the United States. In the United States, a system called the Electoral College periodically allows a candidate who receives fewer popular votes to win an election.
In fact, there have been several presidential candidates who won the popular vote, but lost the election because they received fewer electoral votes. In Russia, where no such system exists, the candidate who receives a majority of popular votes wins the election.
Every four years, on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November, millions of U.S. citizens go to local voting booths to elect, among other officials, the next president and vice president of their country. But the results of the popular vote are not guaranteed to stand because the Electoral College has not cast its vote and what the people actually voted for was not the president and vp but for the Electoral College.
The Electoral College is a controversial mechanism that was created by the framers of the U.S. Constitution as a compromise, some politicians believing a purely popular election was too reckless, while others objected to giving Congress the power to select the president. The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates, a system described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution.
Each state has a number of electors equal to [but not actually comprising] the number of its U.S. senators plus the number of its U.S. representatives. Currently, the Electoral College includes 538 electors, 535 for the total number of congressional members, and three who represent Washington, D.C., as allowed by the 23rd Amendment.
On the Monday following the second Wednesday in December, the electors of each state meet in their respective state capitals to officially cast their votes for president and vice president. These votes are then sealed and sent to the president of the Senate, who on January 6th opens and reads the votes in the presence of both houses of Congress. The winner is sworn into office at noon on January 20th.
Most of the time, electors cast their votes for the candidate who has received the most votes in that particular state. Some states have laws that require electors to vote for the candidate that won the popular vote, while other electors are bound by pledges to a specific political party. However, there have been times when electors have voted contrary to the people's decision, and there is no federal law or Constitutional provision against it.
In most presidential elections, a candidate who wins the popular vote will also receive the majority of the electoral votes, but this is not always the case. There have been four presidents who have won an election with fewer popular votes than their opponent but more electoral votes.
In 2000, for example, Al Gore had over half a million votes more than George W. Bush but after recount controversy in Florida and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Bush was awarded the state by 537 popular votes. Like most states, Florida has a "winner takes all" rule. This means that the candidate who wins the state by popular vote also gets all of the state's electoral votes. Bush became president with 271 electoral votes.
Today, a candidate must receive 270 of the 538 electoral votes to win the election, so George W. Bush won the 2000 election by one electoral vote. In cases where no candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the decision is thrown to the House of Representatives by virtue of the 12th Amendment. The House then selects the president by majority vote with each state delegation receiving one vote to cast for the three candidates who received the most electoral votes.
Here are the two elections that were decided by the House of Representatives:
1801: Thomas Jefferson
1825: John Quincy Adams.
The goal of any candidate is to put together the right combination of states that will give him or her the 270 electoral votes plus. It's a numbers game.
If you're wondering how someone becomes an elector, it turns out it's not the exact same process across the board. It can actually differ from state to state. In general, though, the two most common ways are:
The elector is nominated by his or her state party committee (perhaps to reward many years of service to the party).
The elector "campaigns" for a spot and the decision is made during a vote held at the state's party convention.
Qualifications to be an Elector
He or she cannot be a Representative or Senator;
He or she cannot be a high-ranking U.S. official in a position of "trust or profit";
He or she cannot be someone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the U.S.
Usually, electors are people who are highly politically active in their party (be it Democrat, Green, Libertarian, Republican ...) or connected somehow to the political arena, such as: activists, party leaders, elected officials of the state and even people who have ties (political and/or personal) to the Presidential candidates, themselves. Potential elector candidates are nominated by their state political parties in the summer before the Election Day. The U.S. Constitution allows each state to choose its own means for the nomination of electors.
In some states, the Electors are nominated in primaries the same way that other candidates are nominated. Other states nominate electors in party conventions. All states require the names of all Electors to be filed with the Secretary of State (or equivalent) at least a month prior to election day.
Something to cheer us all up on this snowbound evening. :)
Donne should have written: "No man is an island, especially in Russia." Perhaps he would have, if he'd lived here.
Networks mean survival here and the strongest network is family. I'm just astounded that I have to actually argue with western blogfriends that the family is the best available unit when such a question is not even a question in Russia.
Tragedy can hit suddenly - completely life-altering tragedy - this is so the world over - but in the west, despite even the NHS debacle, there is an infrastructure which kicks in, a safety net. Here there is none. The derelict, the streetkid, he's not picked up by a hospice outreach programme, there is no lifeline to call.
Or she goes into prostitution. The real westerner simply cannot get his mind round this. But surely, in these days of improved medicine, mobile phones and so on? No. We are, all of us, living on the edge each day and that is why, when I don't hear from my friend for two days or he from me, fear kicks in. Not anger, not resentment - it's far worse - fear. Especially in winter.
An aspect of this is that the melodramatic and unnecessary drama then becomes the living reality - and it does do this, it really does.
The Russians are blunt because they must be to survive and any westerner living here must also be so, otherwise he goes down. There is no planning and speculation is a pointless exercise because tomorrow might be your last. It's in every aspect of life. More spuriously, if you see a pair of shoes you like and you wait till tomorrow to decide, they won't be there.
Faith takes on a meaning all its own, the longer you live here close to the streets and markets.
The exhortation of Christ that he will come like a thief in the night, at a time no one expects, is immediately applicable to this country. Make sure you've taken care of all the details before you go out each day. At this moment, the trouble is with my friend and his family. Tomorrow it might be me. There are always two or three issues with everyone - I have mine - but they usually stay relatively benign, dormant.
Then a conjunction of circumstances suddenly renders two of the three malignant and that's your life blighted. It's in this context that I approach cyber-issues as less than life and death, given that I'm due for a fall of my own in 2010. Like wars, it's already been arranged and you just take it as it comes.
So the only thing is to utilize the remaining time, to get your novels, your small legacy, up and running, take care of property matters and then, like any batsman in cricket, just keep stroke making until they finally get you.
After all, everyone has to go sometime.
I like this one too but it requires patience. That's about the amount of snow we have but not the enemy shooting at us. At this point. :)
Warning: Politically incorrect post ahead. All who may be offended best not to read!
That was the question posed by one of my professors during the intensive January mini-course. We were talking about fish. In Spanish, there are two words for fish: pez (when the fish is in the sea) y pescado (when it´s on your plate). In my seven (soon to be eight) years of speaking the language, I always have messed up things like this. There are also words for chicken when it´s in the barnyard and on your plate, well, you get the idea.
So, I messed up pez y pescado. My teacher looked at me and laughed, ¨Matt, you know the difference between us (Spaniards) and the Japanese?¨ ¨What is it?¨ I aksed. ¨We eat pescado, they eat pez.¨
One of the things I truly love about Spain, they are brutally honest and very politically incorrect. They say what they think. If you aren´t warned about it beforehand, it can be quite offending. For instance, two Saturdays ago, I was going to a nightclub with a Spaniard friend of mine. Before leaving, my landlady suggested I change my jacket.
Another thing I love about Spain are the TV ads. Here are three of my favorites:
Renault´s Twingo Ad put to classical music
Seat (a Spanish car company) ad for the Altea XL put to the great Civil War song ¨When Johnny Comes Marching Home.¨ I asked my landlady about all the English language songs used in the ads. Her response was, ¨Well, we´re quite Americanized.¨
Finally, my personal favorite, a Vicks Nasal Spray ad. Notice at the end the part that says ¨Read the instructions of this medicine and consult the pharmicist." That is one part of Spain´s TV ads I don´t like. Every, and I mean every (without exception), medicine ad has to have that at the end of the ad, as required by law. It gets quite old when three or four medicine ads happen in a row (sadly, that has happened several times in the past few days). I mentioned to my landlady´s son, if I were to go to Hell, that would be my punishment, seeing that screen over and over again. Not a second after I said that came another ad. He looked at me and I said, with a solemn face, ¨Why??????¨
Alright, that´s all for now. I might not be able to post again for a while because the computer I use right now has weak net capabilities and Internet cafés, while cheap, aren´t high on my list. Until next time!
