Baku: A City Rejuvenated By Oil

Until the late 19th century, Baku was a small medieval wall town on the western shores of the Caspian Sea, famous only as a home of ancient Zoroastrianism.

Then it discovered oil.

It quickly attracted the attention of Europe's well-heeled rich, and many local farmers had the luck to dig underground, strike oil and become millionaires in months. By the beginning of the 20th century, it produced half the world's oil (by contrast, Kuwait, one of the world's richest petrostates today, produces a mere 5 per cent). By the start of the First World War, Baku (as part of the Russian Empire) had long overgrown the old medieval walled town and was full of mansions, parks and boulevards to rival Europe's richest and most famous cities.

This all ended with the Bolshevik revolution. Although briefly independent (as the Bolsheviks were at first too distracted by the civil war), by 1920 it was part of the Soviet Union, and Baku disappeared off the maps of the world. Baku's first "Oil Boom" was over.

During the Soviet era, Baku as a city stagnated, still well-off and cosmopolitan compared to the rest of the USSR, but its oil industry became inefficient and horribly polluting on the local environment, as the Soviets lacked the money to invest in more mordern, cleaner methods of extraction. Baku and the surrounding region became a toxic mess.

After independence in 1992, Western investment was not long in returning. After the "deal of the century" in the late '90s, BP and other oil multinationals brought a second "Oil Boom". Ten years on from that, Baku, looks to have restored its place on the world stage.

From a personal point of view, the changes in Baku over the past couple of years have been fairly astonishing. First arriving to Baku at the beginning of 2009, Baku looked like a city going places: buildings from the first "Oil Boom" were starting to be properly restored, and there were signs that also iconic ultra-modern structures were starting to be added to the cityscape.

There were still much room for improvement, of course, socially-speaking. The spread of the oil wealth clearly had not touched some people, but that was natural, considering the circumstances. Also, Baku being part of socially-conservative, Muslim Azerbaijan, led to some confusing misconceptions to the foreigner: although people dressed in a fairly Western style of clothing, a Western sense of liberal morality did not always accompany that. Social mores were still rather conservative and traditional.

Recently returning to Baku, after a break of several months, the extent of the changes, both physically and socially, have been remarkable. After many months of work, the city centre has been restored to match the grandiosity of the days of the first "Oil Boom", albeit with 21st refinements. The parks and boulevards of downtown Baku match those, in terms of style and elegance, of the most famous European cities. The city centre may, to architectural snobs, look like a confection of European styles, but this was all built by those Europeans a century ago.

The old city (called "Icherishehir" in Azeri) has been restored and polished up, to the effect that, once you pass through the old town walls, you feel as though you have stepped back a few centuries in time, if you ignore the souvenir hawkers. The old town is a labyrinth of alleyways and passages, and what's more, totally silent.

Socially, too, the changes have been sudden and seemingly irreversable. Young people as well as familes and pensioners, now take advantage of the newly-restored parks and public spaces, hanging out till late. The nightlife scene, at one time somewhat limited in its scope, is rapidly opening up and diversifying.

Baku looks to have regained its due sense of civic pride with gusto, and is a pleasure to spend time in, provided you have the money of course. In other words, Baku is well and truly open for business.

Friendship in the 21st century

According to a definition I recently found through Wikipedia (the source all misinformation, say some), "Friendship" can be traditionally defined as having the following common characteristics:

• sympathy and empathy
• honesty
• mutual understanding and compassion
• trust in one another
• equal give and take

It´s commonly said by people these days (especially users of social networking sites) that they feel disconnected from others due to technology. What they mean, I guess, is that technology depersonalises all social interactions: people no longer have "friendships"; they have "networks", "colleagues", "acquaintances", and so on.
This is the ultimate irony of social interaction in the 21st century: anyone you "know" can be your "friend". I think it´s hilarious that, through Facebook, a complete stranger can see your photo then ask to be your "friend". The real-life equivalent would be a complete stranger walking up to you on the street and asking the same question. In other words, social networking, and the "distance" that technology creates, allows people to behave in a way that they would never consider in real life. The same for Twitter: people write things (insults in particular) on there that they would never tell somebody in the flesh - or not if they didn´t expect to get a good beating afterwards!
The nature of social networking is by nature schizophrenic: having more than a hundred "friends" is unrealistic in the real world; you would never have time to see them all enough to have "quality" relationships. So this means "relationships" become sanitised to the point of being cosmetic adornments. I think anyone who uses social networking on a regular basis can identify with this point.
What does this mean for real "friendship" then? Going back to the points listed at the beginning, there was a time before "social networking "existed when people had a number of close friends that they kept in regular touch with. These were not necessarily colleagues (usually they may have been school friends or neighbourhood friends). "Social networking" is a useful tool; but it should not be confused with physical "contact" friendship.
There are the other, more obvious, reasons why the traditional idea of "friendship" is dying a slow death, and it´s not because of social networking. Facebook and other networks are symptom of the social disconnect, not a cause of it.
The cause is the changing nature of society; through increased work hours; through increased demand for worker flexibility and movement; and so on. Friendships are no longer the result of years of bonding as they were before; they are "products", "connections", whatever buzz word you choose to call it. But having a "connection" to somebody is not the same as a real "relationship". The trap is thinking that they are the same thing.
This is due to lack of time due to the contraits of modern living; an intellectual way of saying that we longer have time for each other that we did before (i.e. before the 21st century). I can cite many personal examples of this; we all can, I'm sure. Like in my earlier posting about "Progress", the real meaning of "friendship" is becoming lost in the age of Facebook, Twitter and the like. These networking sites have become substitutes for the "real" friendships we have all lost due to the sheer pace of life. Am I as guilty as anyone of this? Of course. The face that I am sharing this with people through networking is a sign of that disconnection. But I am not judging; just observing.
Humanity is caught in the middle of all this: everything is in flux, and the the connections between people become all the more confused and fragmented. Society as a whole sees itself as a mass of lost individuals. No wonder, then, that we don´t know where this is leading.

Reading The Runes: the times, they are a changin'

Recently read an article from "The Economist" talking about the changing face of politics in much of the West: the main point was the gradual disintigration of traditional, mass political parties as people turned away from them. Either they turned to fringe parties (as in Europe), or have become more disconnected from the political establishment than ever (as in the USA).

The evidence is all there:

In the USA the number of people who call themselves "Independents" (as recorded in a recent Gallup Survey) is higher than those who call themselves Democrats or Republicans; this has never been the case before. In other words, a two party system exists where one-third of the population no longer supports either main party. The result of this? The growth of the Tea Party, although it attracts the wilder element of the Republicans, also attracts a fair number of Independents who see them as seperate from the mainstream establishment, especially when Tea Partiers talk (rightly or wrongly) of going back to the purity of the Constitution and see governmenet bureaucracy as the source of America's malaise.

In the UK, with the rise to shared power of the third party, the Liberal Democrats (happening due to the deadlock of the other two main parties) sees a possibly permanent shift away from the old FPTP system with a referendum of voting reform chalked in for next May. That said, this is complicated by the fact that since "going to bed" with the Conservatives, the Lib Dems were cajoled (tricked?) into making painful (for the party members, infuriating) compromises and policy shifts that has badly damaged their legitimacy as a "third force" in UK politics. For this reason, the former governing Labour party has quickly benefitted from this, though all three parties now face different kinds of credibility issues with the economy and other issues. This puts the state of UK politics in an uncertain time; like in the USA, a portion of the population may feel that the established parties no longer reflect, and deal with, their concerns.

In Europe, the trends here are towards (usually right-wing) fringe parties. In Holland the nationalist racist Geert Wilders now shares power in a coalition; in Hungary, the same can be said of the racist "Jobbik" party; Belgium, due to the unsolvable linguistic political divides, hasn't had an effective national government for years. Of the larger countries, Italy's Berlusconi is already well-known for his increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric, and shares power with the racist Northern League (who want the Italian north seperated). France's Sarkozy has been trying to shore up his increasing unpopularity by turning Gypsies into an easy target.

Only Germany bucks this trend slightly, in that the Greens are quickly becoming the voice of the left (due to the German system, they have a lot of say in state politics, and were in the former SDP coalition government) and may well even eventually overtake the SDP as the rival to Chancellor Merkel's conservative CDU coalition with the more economically-conservative FDP.

Why is all this happening? Short answer: the fallout from the financial crisis. People in all the USA and Europe see a failure of the political establishment in reacting to (and predicting) the meltdown of the financial industry. Everywhere, there are stronger and stronger shades of anger, unemployment and general financial hardship. People blame the politicians and the banks in equal measure, then see the collusion over how the crisis was dealt with by the same politicians and bankers.
No wonder then, that people are either turning to the extremes (as in Europe) or becoming more and more disillusioned (as in the UK and USA); though this disillusionment can easily turn to extremism also, given time.

This is all nothing new, of course. It happened after the last global financial crisis happened; the Great Depression. And right now, many people in the industrialised West are feeling there own kind of great depression, turning on the streets to great frustration and great anger. Where (and when) can it all end? Well, we all know where it ended last time. The economic and political circumstances are not so much different now. Of course, things never repeat themselves exactly. But a real danger is that the USA and Europe could become immersed in their own difficulties, creating a geo-political vacuum that other powers and rising powers can easily exploit. Although, perhaps this was inevitable anyway.
China is rising unstoppably (though historically this was always just a matter of time); Brazil is fast learning how to apply her increasingly useful position in the world; Russia has always been there; India may be in the future (given a decade or two). Then there are other forces to be reckoned with or respected: the Gulf States, though small in terms of population, possess great economic power with their oil and strategic location. Nations like Turkey, which hold a great strategic position, are bound to have even more influence as deal-brokers between the larger powers, and to their own benefit.
This leaves other regions, frankly, to be fought over for influence by the Great Powers: Africa is resource rich (although, tragically, dirt-poor); Central Asia is also rich in fossil fuels. These are the two main areas of contention geographically stuck between various larger powers. That leaves the seas and oceans (and the Artic is already being carved up in advance for future oil exploration).

If this all seems depressing, it shouldn't be. Not because what I'm describing is good, but it all seems inevitable as part of humanity's great game. It's an inevitable part of humanity's progress to the next stage. Where we are all heading after these issues have all been resolved depends on us.

Ayn Rand: She´s The Devil In Disguise

In a second hand bookshop I recently found a book (published in the 1960s) which was a series of essays in praise of capitalism, by Ayn Rand and a few others.

The most striking thing about her ideas is how they became so popular. Rand was a Russian immigrant who fled the Bolshevik Revolution, and thus became an ardent anti-Communist and arch-capitalist. Considering her traumatic early life experience, it´s not hard to see why.
Her school of thought can be traced through the 20th century to today: from the the actions of financiers that led to the Great Depression; to the formation of the Chicago School; to the establishment of Monetarism and "Reaganomics"; to Newt Gingrich´s "Contract with America" in the 1990s; to the actions of the "Neocons" during the Bush II administration; and finally to the beliefs of the Tea Party.

What all these successive "belief systems" share is a core value that government (and collective action) is by nature evil, and that individuals (human beings) are by nature good. Looking at this viewpoint from a different, moralistic, way: altruism and selflessness (according to Rand´s logic) is precisely what led to Communism, therefore the only way to defeat this "evil" is to abolish government and allow private individuals the right to figure things out for themselves.

From Dante´s description of Lucifer as the fallen angel who fell in love with humanity and loathed the collective moralising of God, Rand´s moral compass seems very close to the beliefs of Lucifer. Because, in essence, it could be argued that Lucifer was humanity´s first model for anarchism: to destroy all things that hold humanity back from the unrelenting pursuit of self.

This, then, is the conclusion of Rand´s creed: the ultimate, individualistic pursuit of selfishness. Rand argues that human progress only happens in societies which are rational and free - by which she means free of government regulation, government welfare (because she sees "welfare" as an intrusion into the lives of individuals) and so on. She argues that all human discovery happened when people were free to pursue their goals free of government influence.
All this sounds idealistic and appealing to an extent (as it is meant to), but it disguises a ruthless truth: that unregulated capitalism in the real world leads inevitably, not to a free market heaven, but to an oligarchic hell. Companies, by their nature, are psychopathic: they care about the profit motive, and are very far from "rational". Short-termism, making a quick buck, cutting corners, downsizing, these are all words that abound in the capitalist world created by the disciples of Ayn Rand like Alan Greenspan and the like. Let´s not forget that now there are only a few major banks left in the USA, thanks to the deregulation that Rand promoted, and created the conditions for the financial crisis. Goldman Sachs is now the primary shareholder of the USA; many of its former employees now run the government, or ran the last one.

So the primary economic model that runs the largest, most important economy in the world, was devised by....well, you know what I mean.

Obama´s Luck: is he a Clinton, or a Carter?

With the midterm elections this November, and the fact that Obama and the Democrats are expecting to lose out to the Republicans, what might this mean for Obama´s presidency?

The fates of the last two Democratic presidents at the same point in their terms may hold some answers, both positive and negative.

Carter, coming to power on the back of a wave of anti-Republicanism in 1976, faced a host of domestic problems. In the midterms if 1978, inspite of these problems, and the fact that he was quickly seen as well-intentioned but ineffective leader, the Democrats lost only a small number of seats. That said, two years later, with a resurgent GOP and a charismatic leader, Ronald Reagan, Carter was trounced in the 1980.

Clinton came to power in 1992 but made a number of mistakes, so by the 1994 midterms the resurgent Republicans, led by aggressive speaker Newt Gingrich, wiped out much of the Democrats power base. That said, Clinton quickly found his feet and bounced back, Gingrich´s power went to his head, and by 1996 Clinton was a shoo-in to win a second term, and did. We all know the rest.

So where does this put Obama in 2010? The way that the Republican grassroots base has been hijacked by the Tea Party seems similar to the way that Reagan took the Republicans in a new, even more right-wing "free market" direction after 1976, when the Monetarists and bankers took command of Reagan´s economic policy.
The problem with drawing too many similarities to Carter´s fate is that the Republicans of 2010 do not seem to have a charismatic leader (as they had in Reagan in 1978), apart from the antics of Sarah Palin, who largely appeals to the party base rather than the wider public.
This is why the fate of Clinton might offer more hope for Obama. The antics of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party have more in common with the theatrics of Newt Gingrich in the ´90s. Assuming that the Democrats are badly defeated in November, the Tea Party may well commit the same error that Gingrich made - becoming arrogant in the extreme, to the point that turns off ordinary people.

This is the Democrats secret hope now, no doubt. This gives Obama hope for the chances of winning a second term if the Tea Party bandwagon´s wheels quickly start falling off once it is given the limelight of political responsibility after success in the midterms. Certainly, the behaviour of the partisan Tea Party gives some weight to this point of view.
The Democrats dread, therefore, is that the "guy on main street" may see the antics of the Tea Party, but still consider them the lesser of two "evils" - the "evil" of big government versus the "evil" of no government, and prefer no government interference to well-intentioned initiatives from Washington.

The complicating factor in all this is the economy. The "recovery" has yet to really take hold, and the country may well remain sluggish beyond 2012, because recoveries after crises are never quick to take hold. After the "lost decade" of the 2000s that the Bush administration presided over added weight to the lie that Republicans are responsible managers of the economy (under Reagan and Bush Jr, they allowed the national debt to balloon to offset low taxes). And yet, people are turning back to them so quickly after the tumultuous first two years of the Obama administration. Patience may be a virtue, but it is one that is sorely lacking in many Americans in need of jobs and financial assistance.

The horrible irony is that the Republicans may be rewarded for not only wrecking the economy, but also sabotaging the recovery.

The Devil Votes Republican

The popularity of the Republican is a true work of art. It is a political organisation whose continual success and re-invention can only be explained through the kind of cunning that Satan himself would be proud of.

First of all, a brief history.
Created around the time of the Civil War, the first Republican president was Abraham Lincoln (who has been admired by many ever since). Although he was assassinated, the party went on to dominate US politics for the rest of the 19th century, being in power almost continually throughout the Gilded Age, all the way up to the Great Depression (excepting Woodrow Wilson and Grover Cleveland). Its low point was the twenty-year absence from power while FDR and Truman ruled the roost at the White House.
The modern Republican Party came about through the efforts of Ronald Reagan (for Eisenhower and the Nixon-Ford administration ran the country as moderates in the traditional Republican mould). Since the time of Reagan, the GOP has morphed into something else; an altogether more fearsome creature.

What does the Republican Party stand for?
A good question, considering its continual success and re-invention. First of all, who votes for them, and why?

A short answer could be average God-fearing, socially-conservative patriots, who fear the government, want to pay low taxes, have the right to earn their money and defend the "average guy on the street", be fiscally responsible, and to be defended against foreign enemies. In other words, traditional Protestant values that have existed in the American psyche since Washington´s day.

The beauty of the Republican Party is that they have successfully been able to persuade people that the country´s best interests are best served with them, and been able to persuade them that this is still true even when faced with clear facts that show them the opposite.

"The country´s best interests" though, depends on how you define them. Where most people might see "the country´s best interests" as meaning "the people´s best interests", the Republican Party sees this as meaning "the best interests of those who own the most in the country".

Foreign policy is an instrument of trying to expand the commercial interests of its funders. This does not equate to the same thing as the people´s interests, as the companies that fund the GOP simply want to expand abroad; if that means closing a factory in Michigan to relocate abroad, then great, as money knows no borders. In this logic, there is no such thing as the "national interest"; as these companies own or buy influence over the nation´s assets, these companies are the "national interest". Patriotism is nothing more than a

The Republican Party´s Foreign policy is, in fact, it´s only real "policy".
What stands for "Domestic policy" is nothing more than another instrument to make the conditions best for those who control the most; deregulation of banking (as first pushed by Merril Lynch´s Don Regan, who acted as Ronald Reagan´s Treasury Secretary and later Chief of Staff) is essential to this function. As are all forms of deregulation. For the companies with the most can only flourish the most if there are no rules holding them back.

"The government does best when it does the least" - this is the Republican slogan. A beautiful logical absurdity: by definition government exists because there is an absence of something. If government exists only to destroy then government by definition is no real government at all. In its place there is a vacuum; anarchy.
The Republican Party seems to want to create a form of anarchy whereby the American people simply pay taxes to fund the "defence of the nation" (meaning "commercial expansion of the elite´s foreign interests"). Taken to its logical conclusion, domestic policy would no longer exist: the government has outsourced all its domestic operations so that it no longer needs to directly spend money on any of its citizens. The people fend for themselves while the "government" uses its taxes to expand its foreign operations. And as the government´s interests expand abroad, this necessarily leads to a further degradation of the conditions at home.

There is a word for this. It´s called tyranny.

This is the Republican dream. To allow this dream to become a reality, vote Republican. Vote Satan

Progress...and the real meaning

Stood in crowded conditions, barely able to move, for hours each day.
These were the conditions that slaves in past centuries were shipped in to their new places of work.
These are also the conditions which millions of us tolerate today when we go to work.
The difference? Slaves had no choice. People today choose to tolerate much the same conditions every day that slaves fought to break away from two hundred years ago.

Transport to and around town was fifteen miles per hour by horsecarriage.
In many cities in the world, it takes about the same.
The difference? Horseback was the fastest way of getting around. Now we have buses and the technology for more efficient transport networks. But most people still prefer to go by car and sit in the traffic jam. So people choose to tolerate (while stressing about) travelling at the same speed society did a hundred years ago.

People work twelve-hour days, but are paid for only eight of them.
During the Industrial Revolution this was the norm, as workers rights were still in their infancy. In the 21st century much of industrialised society work exactly the hours, just doing different jobs.
The difference? Two hundred years ago workers had no rights. Now workers still work under the same conditions because they feel "obliged" by the work environment.

So what happened? Where is the "progress"?
Johnathon Swift got it right in "Gulliver´s Travels" when he said that all that changes in human society were simply advances in technology, not society. He used the example of warfare, but it could be applied to just about anything; the media (newsprint giving way to TV and the internet); working conditions; lifestyle.
Real progress should be about human life becoming easier - that´s what all the scientists of the past fantasised about: humans having no work. But the reality has become the opposite. Human society merely uses technology for its own ends.
Email and the internet brings more obligations to our lives (if no-one is ever out of touch with the office any more, where does quality free time come into the equation?).
Increased traffic slows down our lives precisely while we are expected to work and operate faster. The result: stress.
As cities get bigger as we are encouraged to move into them for work purposes, it makes travel more a part of life than it was for workers even before the Industrial Revolution: "commuting" is just another word for slave transportation.

So what is the answer?
Think about this: time and money are all relative concepts. Does it matter if we work an extra few hours per day, or a few less? Does "work" ever stop? Saying that "I need to get these things done" at work is a meaningless statement because there´s ALWAYS something that needs to be done: that´s the nature of work.
Better for society to think like this: keep to regulations about working hours (as in France). Because if we all stick to the same standards, nobody will be competing to do too much, or worry about trying to do more than someone else. If we limit the amount of commuting in cities (by trying to organise society better so that cities don´t get too big, but grow at a sustainable rate) then society will be better overall.
Health suffers from all the stresses caused by the "pressure" from modern living. The problem is that the human mind is expanding at a rate that out human metabolism has difficulty in keeping up with. Don´t forget that we´re only a few thousand years a from hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Our bodies need time to regenerate each day; psychologically, we need quality free time. We need trees. We need silence, at least once a week.

OK, that´s all. Thanks for your time.
Good day and good luck, people!

Istanbul, summer 2010: A Chronicle Of Absurdity and Despair

We arrived in Istanbul on the 1st July.
When we arrived our main priorities were getting a flat, a job, and getting married.

To know properly about getting married we went to the British Consulate the day after we arrived (Lala had asked the Turkish embassy in Baku about this, but had been given the moronic answer that foreigners can´t get married there, while I did some research on the internet for the procedures). They told us that we had to wait three weeks before we could put up a marriage notice, according to the regulations. Very Well.

We then looked for a flat in the meantime. We were staying on Asmali Mescid street in Taksim, a routinely noisy place at night, and the noise and crowds of Taksim quickly wore us down in a matter of days. We first looked for a flat in Bakirkoy, but then switched to Atakoy and after viewing several flats, found one which we liked. Atakoy is not a cheap place to stay, but the price was reasonable (for Isranbul) for a fully-furnished modern flat with a sea view and surrounded by trees and peace and quiet.
That said, once we chose the flat, bureaucracy and fees got in the way. Requiring a deposit of two months up front, agents commission fees as well as a countersigner (though thankfully the landlord was happy for Lala to do the honours there), this gave us a day of stress and worry. Also, I had a stressful time trying to organise the money for these payments, which took some days and caused the agents a few insistent phonecalls to us. Not very pleasant, but we got the money and the flat, and moved in just under two weeks before we arrived.

It was at this point that I realised that my dear Istanbul was no longer the cheap metropolis I had once known. Money seemed to evaporate into thin air, creating more financial worry and stress on my part.

After the three weeks had elapsed, we returned to the UK consulate with my documents, only to discover that they needed a birth certificate with my parents name on it. I didn´t have one. This then meant I had to apply for one through the internet, and while waiting for this to arrive, sit around in our flat.

By this time it was early August, and the stress of trying to organise the marriage, and also try to get a job (though later in the month I was offered a job at British Side to start in late September; Lala still looking for work), we decided we needed a break from all the hassle and went to Bodrum for a few days. Even this, though, did not escape my financial worries (although hwe had a great time), as we had to stay two nights longer than we expected due to the coaches to Istanbul being so full.
We returned to Istanbul and my certificate had finally arrived, and so we could make the marriage declaration. I could then collect my certificate on no impediment three weeks later (at the start of September).
When the time finally came, we went to the Istanbul authority on the same day (this was a few days before our parents were due to arrive in expectation of our wedding day) to certify our documents. There was a problem. Lala´s Azeri documents had not been notarised in Turkey, but in Azerbaijan before we arrived. The Turkish authorities needed a document of no impediment from the embassy directly.
This then meant going to the Azeri embassy for two days (standing in a "queue", though this was just a list of names on a first-come-first-served basis, so we put our name on the list, went to a nearby cafe and periodically went back to see how the "queue" was moving). When she finally went inside, they said her document would take three days to process.
Then there was the medical certificate. We had to go to a medical centre to have a "check up" (in reality the doctor asked us two questions), and then, we had our birth certificates notarised and translated (although these had already been checked by our national embassies in order to get a document of no impediment). By this time, it was the third week in September.
Once Lala´s document from her embassy was ready to collect, we then realised that we had to get our passports translated and notarised as well. All these delays meant that our parents´time here would no longer include staying for our wedding. We went to the local registar in Atakoy, only to be told of a final, absurd, hurdle. Even though we were staying in a rented flat in Atakoy, because we didn´t have residence permits (we were still tourists at the time), according to Turkish procedures, we were supposed to stay in a hotel and get a document from the hotel saying we were registered guests there. It was the evening of this day when, hearing this news, we were almost ready to have a nervous breakdown. These procedures had not been mentioned by any of the authorities.

By this point, I had burned through a large portion of my savings (so that I was getting worried how I could possibly organise my finances), but I should also talk about Lala´s job-searching exploits. As an Azeri with a CELTA, after applying at countless schools, by late August only English Time had expressed an interest in her (then the woman offering the job went to the USA, leaving her Turkish understudy in charge, who then forgot all about the job offer). Perhaps it was for the best anyway, because by the second half of September, finally Lala´s luck changed and she got three job interviews. Two were part-time teaching positions, while the third was teaching Russian (Lala´s first language) at ILM. Then, when she called to confirm about the ILM job they replied that they only wanted "Russian" teachers; incredibly, they did not believe that Lala, being from Azerbaijan, could possibly know Russian so well. They never bothered to check, though, because they didn´t speak Russian.

So I started work at British Side while Lala was waiting for her visa run before she could start the part-time teaching jobs in October. We were both on three-month visas, and though I had managed to get a residence permit organised, Lala still needed to renew her visa.

To save on money, she got a bus to Georgia (Bulgaria and Greece requiring visa paperwork) on the 28th September. Then, at the Turkish-Georgian border, she was told that she had overstayed her visa by two months, and had to pay a fine and be allowed back into Turkey three months later. Or be deported and not come back for five years. Now, this is the thing: when she arrived the customs said her visa was valid for three months, as was mine. But, over the summer the Turkish aurthorities had decided to clamp down on their flexible regulations. The UK was also in the firing line, but the British authorities had managed to make the Turks see that tightening visa regulations would damage British tourism, so had postponed their plans for UK visas. The Azeris I guess had no such luck, as Azerbaijan had earlier this year tightened on its visa-free regime to Turkey (partly because Turkey had sought better relations with Armenia); in response, Turkey did the same to Azerbaijan. Now Azeris could only stay in Turkey for one month, not three. Except that for Lala to be fined retrospectively for overstaying what had been a three-month visa was absurd. Of course, we didn´t know about these visa changes until this morning. Teaching English is practically impossible for Lala in Turkey.

So now, Lala is no longer in Turkey, and I am stuck here for the time being. No wedding, no fiancee. Life without love is a prison. Going home to an empty flat full of your partner´s belongings is a heartbreaking experience. I only hope a solution and a way out of Turkey come up soon.

Things aren´t what they used to be...

After recently reading about how much of a sex god JFK was, someone might be led to think "why did Jacqueline put up with it all?".

This is a good question, and when I read about stories in, for example, the "Daily Mail" that criticise our modern culture and lack of family values compared to the "Golden Years" of the 1950s, that´s when I start to wonder about some people´s memory of the past.

Question: do people have more social freedom that fifty years ago? Obviously, yes.
Question: Is that a good or bad thing? Yes and no.

It´s easy to think of the years in the past when the divorce rate was much lower, families stayed together, and so on, but all that "domestic bliss" was a double-edged sword.
Much of that "bliss" was a cover behind rampant adultery on the part of men, not to mention domestic violence that went unspoken of publicly. All that occurred in the privacy of the home fifty years ago is now very much considered part of the public domain.

The reason why Jacqueline never considered divorcing the rampantly adulterous JFK was probably because she simply was able to tolerate it. Fifty years ago, there were also far more loveless marriages of convenience (JFK and Jacqueline one of them, as I understand), but both parties tolerated making such a sacrifice for a "greater good". Related to that is the fact that social intolerance was also tolerated far more: racism was a part of life for many blacks; the gay community tolerated and adapted to their hidden status. Everywhere, people were making sacrifices with their personal freedoms and rights, making do with a half a life.

Am I saying this was better in some ways? No; just different.

With the rise of civil rights in the sixties and seventies there also came a subsequent increase in individualism and self-interest. I think the two points are related. Greater personal freedoms naturally gives people a greater sense of entitlement, and are less willing to make sacrifices in their personal happiness for the sake of others.
Nowadays we´re living in a much more tolerant society; and also intolerant. Fifty years ago, people tolerated intolerance in society. Nowadays, people are intolerant to intolerance. Fifty years ago, people made sacrifices everyday; nowadays, people find it more difficult.

The rise of individualism can be linked to the collapse of the "family" unit. That´s what social conservatives say, anyway. But the "family unit" had been living as a sham for decades before the social evolution that occurred in the 1960s. You only have to look at the private lives of the "iconic" rich and famous (who some in the media still gold up as moral paragons of virtue - Churchill, an alcoholic; FDR had a sham marriage for decades; Sinatra was a womaniser; and so on) to see that.

No, things aren´t what they used to be. But, then again, they never were in the first place.

Here's One Way To Fix The Middle East

The situation in Palestine/Israel looks as bleak as ever; the Palestianians politically divided into to semi-autonomous mini-states, with the Israeli government ruling over each of them with impunity.
For the purposes of Israeli "security", the Palestinians in the West Bank live in an area surrounded by a wall: a wall which conveniently slices of chunks of supposedly "Palestinian" land for Israel proper; and behind the wall, Israeli "settlers" live in towns and villages, guarded by Israeli soldiers at dozens of checkpoints throughout the territory.
The Palestinians in Gaza, due to the territory being ruled by the more actively-proactive regime of Hamas, rather than the more passive regime of Fatah in the West Bank, are collectively punished by the Israeli administration: borders allow only a trickle of aid through to Gaza, and the sea is blockaded. Any attempts at breaking the blockade are either turned away, or, as was recently shown, violently dealt with.

Before the founding of Israel, the Jews had no homeland to call their own. Since the founding of Israel, the Palestinians have had no homeland to call their own.

The current situation is unsustainable. Niether the Israelis or Palestinians would accept rule by the other. The wounds of the past decades are too deep; both sides hold too much hate of the other to contemplate further humiliation.

Very well, then. If neither side can tolerate the other, here's the alternative. Clues to a possible solution lie in comparisons to other situations elsewhere; such as in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Lebanon, Kosovo and South Africa. Strands from how each of these situations were solved seems the be the only way I can think of to make some kind of fair peace exist in the Middle East.

Step 1:
If Israel wants to treat the Palestinians as second class citizens, then the world community should deal with it in the same way as the aparthied regime of South Africa. It cannot claim to be a "Western" country whilst holding such contempt for so many of its own citizens. Sanctions, international isolation, and so on, are the way to bring sense to the Israeli government and to the negotiating table with the UN. In the USA, this involves removing the legitimacy of the Israel lobby by a widespread campaign educating Jews that the government of Israel is doing the worst possible job for promoting the cause of the Jewish people.

Step 2:
The territory of Israel/Palestine becomes part of a UN trustee-ship. The "government" of the territory passes to the UN secretary-general (or an internationally-trusted understudy); ministers to the government comprise (as in Lebanon, another multi-faith democracy) a balance of the different faiths represented in the territory at the 1947 levels (i.e. wiping the slate clean and putting the clock back to last time the UN last considered the Palestinian Question, as since 1947 Jews have moved to the territory with the express purpose of boosting their cause for seperate statehood).

Step 3:
The policing and defense of the territory (as now in Northern Ireland) is also comprised of a balance of the different faiths in the territory. The police force is overseen by an impartial foreign high representative (as in Bosnia), and at street-level, foriegn peacekeepers are mingled in with the native police force (as below).
At a defence level, the territory has a multi-faith multinational peacekeeping force (e.g. including the UK, France, Russia, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan and China), each of the half-dozen or so countries involved with a force of around 5-10,000 troops.

This provides no guarantees, of course, but it at least takes the responsibility of statehood out of the hands of the Israelis and Palestinians till a time in the future (ten years? more?), when they can actually start to think of each other as real human beings, and then consider living together without UN paternalism. But, if they're going to act like a bunch of schoolchildren, what else can you do?

The Myth Of Israeli Exceptionalism, And The Freedom Flotilla

Any country should be judged fairly according to the way it reacts to events. The sign of a mature, and civilised country, is also the way it reacts to threats. Like any person, a person's level of maturity can be seen by how well they react to events; if they react rationally, and with a careful, measured response, this is the measure of maturity.
Applying the same thing to nation-states, we can compare how countries react to events, in particular, terrorism.

This is all provoked by the very recent news of the shooting (killing a number, and wounding many more) of unarmed charity workers on board a boat by Israeli commandos.
First of all, the Israeli foreign minister said that the "Freedom Flotilla" was a provocation to Israeli sovereignty. Regardless of my views of the Mr Liebermann, the foreign minister, this statement is wrong on two points: a group of ships of charity workers sending food and medical supplies cannot be called a provocation; and Gaza is not Israeli territory, so cannot be considered part of Israeli sovereignty.
Whoever gave permission for commandos to attack unarmed civilians (Mr Liebermann?) shows a complete lack of humanity, as well as a disregard for international law, and no right to membership to belonging to civilisation in general.
But let's review the right that Israel has to defend itself against threats to its sovereignty, and terrorism. Let's compare it to other countries with terrorism problems, and let the facts speak for themselves.

In 2006, after the terrorist attack by Hezbollah killed two Israeli soldiers, Israel straightaway bombed Beirut airport, and launched an all-out war against the Lebanese government, destroying much of its infrastructure over a month-long attack ("war" would be a misleading term here, as the Lebanese government had already told its military not to defend itself against Israeli attacks).
The IRA often attacked and killed British soldiers in Northern Ireland and elsewhere during its terrorist campaign; yet the British government never thought to bomb Dublin airport or destroy the Republic of Ireland's infrastructure as a "measured retaliation".
The same could be said of the Spanish government's response to ETA's unending terror campaign.

A blockade has been in place against the Hamas-controlled territory of Gaza for some years now. Israel says this is a fair response against the terror attack by Hamas.
Again, the UK had never considered a blockade a reasonable response to the IRA's terror campaign. And it has never considered attacking civilians who dared to try and "break" the "blockade".
So what's so special about Israel?

English Is A Funny Language

Being an English teacher gives you a unique perspective on the language. So, with consideration to many confused foreigners in mind, I've made a list of English phrases and so on, which could be easily misinterpreted by foreigners, with possible misinterpretations:

Spinach doesn't agree with me ("I had an argument with a spinach leaf, and now we're not talking to each other")

I couldn't agree with you more ("If I agree with you once again, I'll explode")

I feel like a cup of coffee ("I'm having an existential crisis at the moment")

Well I never! ("I'm always ill")

You're kidding! ("You're acting like a child")

Help yourself to whatever you like ("I'm not going to help you")

Suit yourself ("You need to buy a new suit")

It takes one to know one ("I can't add up even simple sums")

I'm all fingers and thumbs ("I've had an unfortunate episode at the plastic surgeon")

Take your time ("Don't forget your watch")

I'm always changing my mind ("I have frequent visits to the brain surgeon")

Feel free to speak your mind ("I don't mind if you start talking to yourself")

Pull yourself together ("Your arms and legs are falling off")

I'm struggling to make ends meet ("I have trouble finishing sentences")

I take after my father ("Like my father, I'm a thief")

Nick Clegg: A "British Obama"?

A lot of things have been said and written about Nick Clegg over the last month. Some have made a mention of the way that he had styled himself on the campaign trail using the same rhetoric as Obama: the "yes we can" style of politics, and all that.
Well, for my part, here are a few reasons that I can think of to support the view that Clegg does represent something a bit different, like Obama did two years ago. And I don't subscribe to the view that Obama has been a disappointment, or even a betrayer of the ideals he supported before coming to office, by the way: he's a realist, like any smart person should be. And so is Clegg.

First, the background: Obama is an African-American (in the real sense of the word), which makes him, as only "partially" American, an outsider. Clegg is, technically, only one quarter British: his mother was Dutch , his father half-Russian (Nick Clegg's paternal grandfather was English, and married an Russian emigre aristocrat). That makes Clegg, in a British sense, as far from being pure British as is possible.

Second, both Obama and Clegg's life history and viewpoint is of the "liberal cosmopolitan", at odds with a large section of their society. Obama spent his youth in Indonesia and Hawaii, later becoming a lawyer for the underpriveleged in Chicago. In other words, he spent his formative years abroad and out of the loop. The same can be said of Clegg: he spent time in Germany as a student, later in the USA, and spent his early career working in some capacity for the EU, only later getting involved in British politics.

And third, these experiences have helped shaped their viewpoint and involvement in politics: in some way, this makes them slightly "geeky" compared to some other politicians. Clegg may have been inspired by Obama's strategy and political style to some extent: during the election campaign, that seemed the case. Both, since being in office (although under very different circumstances) have tried to use a collaborative approach to politics, that engages the public (Obama with his weekly public internet updates, Clegg with his internet connections to supporters) - the internet, being just one example. And both are trying, in their own ways, to make significant reforms to their countries.

I'm not trying to idealise either Obama or Clegg, of course. They have made mistakes; but it's clear that the sincerity of what they are doing is there. In some ways, they both aspire to be transformative figures in their countries. Obama was given his chance two years ago; Clegg given his chance just recently.
The USA and UK are politically very different places, so the type of politics, and the types of politicians that exist, will be different. But I can see that both these men have a clear idea what they are doing, what they want to do, and how they are going to try and achieve it.

PR, AV, and what's TBA by the Lib-Con Cleggmerons

It's all about voting systems.

Electoral reform was the key to the LibDems coming to agreement with the Conservatives, and now they've agreed to have a referendum on the Alternative Vote voting system.

Well, PR was the LibDem's dream (and there are plenty of people still campaigning, with LibDem support, for such a change). But, being realistic for the moment, the two main parties were never likely to support it: like turkeys voting for Christmas. In the end the LibDem coalition choice boiled down to a deal with the Conservatives, where they sacrifice a few of their policies for the sake of stability and a historic chance of power. Or do a deal with Labour that offered what they wanted, but at the price of stability (how long would such a ragged collection of parties lasted? weeks? months?), as well as having questionable legitimacy.

PR is, it goes without saying, the fairest of them all. But, I find it hard to believe that most British people would be able to stomach a PR voting system that would almost certainly result in coalition governments most of the time (perhaps as much as 90% of the time, barring huge landslide victories). Let's not forget that political reform was a gradual process over many decades in the 19th century.

AV is the closest to the present system, that offers a kind tweaking of the system. By counting up second preferences in constituencies, it allows more of a chance for other parties (the British like the idea of fair play) to win seats. I saw a breakdown of this on the internet, using the 2010 election results: under AV, the Conservatives and Labour would have had more-or-less equal seats, although less than now, and the LibDems a few more than they had before the election. The benefits of this system over PR is that, while it certainly makes hung parliaments more likely than now, it still offers the "stability" which a lot of British people seem to prefer.

Of course, this attitude might change very quickly. In which case, the UK will join the rest of Europe in having a PR system that everyone seems to think works fine for them. It depends on the country. One thing's for certain: coalitions force politicians to stop acting like children and behave like real adults.

To negotiate and compromise is a sign of maturity, not weakness.

From Knave to Kingmaker: The Fable Of Nick Clegg

The past month has been a whirlwind in British politics; most of all, is the extraordinary rise of Nick Clegg (also known as Nicholas Van Den Wall Bake-Clegg).

Here's a man who, as leader of the Liberal Democrats, was a comparative nobody until the election debates: the guy that no-one (least of all, the media) took seriously, until he actually was given equal respect as the others. And then he blew them away.

That said, in the elections themselves, the momentum all came to nought: except that, lucky for him, the two main parties remained in electoral deadlock, with neither in power. And then did Nick seize the opportunity.

As the Conservatives were the biggest party, he realised that it would make political sense to first make overtures to the Conservatives, regardless of his true feelings for them. Secretly, him and other Lib Dems knew that too much divided them from the Conservatives than united them.
So official discussions got under way.

Nick's dream was electoral reform, which he knew the Conservatives opposed. So, secret meetings started with the defeated Labour party. Then a group of pro-reform supporters massed outside his HQ, and he dealt with them by taking them like a horse under his reins, urging them to continue their (and his) campaign, adding pressure on the stubborn Conservatives.

It seemed the "discussions" were going well, at least to the Conservatives eyes. As the largest party, surely power was theirs alone? But, no: Nick Clegg and his disciples, though being the smallest group, were the strongest. The power was in the weak; the strength was sapping from the strong.

Then, the Labour PM resigned, and at once the Conservatives knew they were being tricked. For the PM's demise was Nick Clegg's condition to alliance with Labour. Labour were aiding the Lib Dems in a pincer movement to squeeze the stronger Conservatives; and it worked. The Conservatives howled in disbelief; how could this happen? How could a man who was but a knave a month ago, and humbled in elections less than a week before, through his careful planning, bring down the PM and humiliate the other heirs apparent?

For Nick Clegg was no knave: he was not, even, a typical "Englishman" at all: with a Spanish wife, a Dutch mother, half-Russian father, with a Russian aristocrat for a grandmother, no, he was not normal at all. Nick Clegg, the man with the name that some wouldn't even take seriously, could hide behind this weird persona. If he was a geek, then he was just waiting for the right opportunity to flourish. And it had come.

This was the time for the dispossessed from politics to make their mark and bring about their quiet revolution. And the best part was, the other main rivals, Labour and the Conservatives, had convinced themselves that this was the only option for survival. So, through supporting reform, they would freely hand their own political demise to the Lib Dems on a plate.

If it ain't broken, don't fix it (but it is)...

Election Day is finally here.
I've read a lot of columns over the past few weeks about the possible outcomes tomorrow morning, and what they might mean. One thing, though, is for certain. People are confused right now!
But, there's one thing that should be clear, regardless of the outcome: the electoral, first-past-the-post system, is broken.
Regardless of what you think of the Lib Dems, the facts are these: in the 2005 election, Labour became the government with around 30-35% of the vote. As things stand, the Conservatives are hovering with around 35% of the vote, and stand the most likely to win the most seats in government. So, here's the thing: regardless of the party, how can ANY party with only around a third of the vote claim to be a legitimate government by itself? The two-party system, which the current system favours, no longer exists. This has been the case for at least the last twenty five years.
Of course, up to now, the two "main" parties have never seen it in their interest to support electoral reform. But now, the case is not only morally indisputable, it is also, at least for Labour, their only likely option in order to cement a governing agreement with the Lib Dems. Some people argue that this is unfair, as it keeps in power two parties that are likely to come second and third place, locking out the "most popular" party.
This is an trivial point. To begin with, a Lab-Lib government would at least reflect the views of the majority of the electorate, rather than any minority Conservative government. Furthermore, if you look at the parties in purely ideological terms, the only "truly" right-wing party are the Conservatives (regardless of what you think of Labour's record over the War On Terror). The majority of the British public, according to opinion polls, are centre-left. Therefore the government should reflect that fact. It's as simple as that.

One last thing. People in the newspapers have been chewing over the constitutional options, saying that if the Conservatives obtain a number of seats just short of a majority, they morally have the right to govern as a minority government. Well, in the event of a hung parliament, the Prime Minister has the duty/right to try to form a government with others. Any talk of the Conservatives joining with the Ulster Unionists (whoever heard of a Tory-Irish Protestant government?) seems pure speculation until Gordon Brown actually resigns, giving the Queen the obligation to offer his job to Cameron. So, unless the Conservatives get a majority, the ball is in Brown's court, as I see it. This then gives the Lib Dems the chance to offer their terms (electoral reform, a different leader as PM, etc. etc.).
So this could well work out to be a heaven-sent opportunity to bring about a well-needed plumbing job to the electoral system. And also, potentially, usher in a new age of Progressive Left consensus.

The Metropolis At The End Of The World

On a peninsula that reaches out like a vast claw into the void of the sea, sits a city that was founded aeons ago.
The sea itself is a mystery of existence, as it is not a sea at all, but a vast lake of salty water, seperated from all other oceans and bodies of water, and has been thus for so long that men cannot remember.
The peninsula and its interior hinterlands are dry and dusty places, windswept in the spring and autumn, hot and airless in the summer, whipped by stronger winds, rains and snow in the winter.
For such an unforgiving and bleak place to be the site of a city since ancient times defies the laws of nature itself, then. The city sits inside the curvature of the claw, making a site in the natural bay before it. And yet, these people, these people who defy the curses of nature, make their living there.
Who would come to such an unforgiving place, blessed by neither water nor soil: only blessed by those things which civilised men would call curses?
For the men that survive in this city in a far-off wasteland worship, not nature, for that would seem perverse in such a place. No, they worship the destructive force itself: the flame.
For, yes, I forgot to mention: this peninsula has another outlandish attribute. There are places in these environs where the very earth spews fire. The men that make their home here have also learned to worship and harness the primeval element itself. In this godforsaken place, the earth weeps black blood. The fire-worshippers here also make use of the earth's black blood. And thus do they make themselves into a culture.

The winds blow season after season, as though blown by the devil himself. Time passes, and from this remote and otherworldly spot, do legends and tales grow.
For to reach this place takes a feat of endurance all of its own: across mountains from the north, south and west, and the flat, enduring sea from the east. This place is not easy to reach (as though anyone would want to), and when the traveller, nomad, searcher, whatever, arrives here, he soon realises one thing: that this is The Metropolis At The End Of The World.

People of all inclinations, fair and foul, are silently driven here, as though by some chaotic force within them that seeks out the last place on earth. For although there are other places on the earth that may be drier, colder, hotter more remote, perhaps none of them have inclined men to build such a city there. No, there may be more extreme environs: but none have made their natural plight into such a cause for celebration as here. In this city, chaos itself reigns in the minds of its people.

In such a place, is where legends are born.

The Liberal Democrat Surge: Why Treating People Like Adults Can Have Immediate Benefits

Three weeks before the British General Election, the polls put the LibDems on 20%, where they had been for the last fifteen or twenty years, more or less. As had been the case since the Second World War, Conservatives and Labour shared the other 70% of the vote.

Until last Thursday, and the TV Election Debates.

For the past week, something extraordinary has happened: the polls put each of the three parties on roughly equal footing, plus or minus four or five points.

The question is this: how could one simple TV debate provoke such a dramatic response?

My answer: because it treated people to the novelty of being able to make an educated choice about politics. Before these debates, the Labservative see-saw had dominance over the media outlets, with the LibDems pushed out of the limelight. But now that people can genuinely listen to the three main party's leaders and get a real sense of their ideas, people can have a real choice.

The LibDem surge then isn't that surprising. All it shows is that the two-party system that dominated British politics is paper thin.
If these kind of TV debates had been introduced twenty years ago, who knows what would have happened? Maybe three-party politics and the possibility of coalition governments would have been a reality much sooner.
People get the system they deserve. Once the media treated the British public as intelligent people, they start thinking like them.
Now, there's a pleasant surprise...

Dealing With Problems versus Not Dealing With Problems

I was sat on the bus the other day, and I remembered a quote by an environmentalist when describing the industrialised world's attitude to traffic. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) "Building more highways to deal with the rise in number of cars on the road is like buying a bigger size of trousers to deal with your weight problem". In other words, dealing with a problem by not dealing with a problem.

This came to mind because I was on a bus and was thinking about this attitude when looking at how in some countries men and women usually sit in seperate parts of the bus. In the Caucasus (in Azerbaijan, but it also happens in the other Caucasian Republics, too), men usually sit at the back of the bus, and women at the front. The general reasoning behind this is so that women don't get harassed by men (more practically, it also makes it easier for women to get off).
Now, if that's how they want to deal with the issue, fine, but it reminded me of this environmentalist's point. By highlighting the difference between men and women, how does this educate men into dealing with this issue? As far as I see, it doesn't. Sure, it might make men more "respectful" of women when in their presence, but what about when they're not in their presence? On the contrary, this way of "not dealing" with the problem can have worrying side-effects - in other words, it can make men more sexually frustrated.

I'll use another example. A number of Muslim women wear a headscarf. Many Muslim women wear a headscarf for the reason that it gives them the power to choose how much they want others (strangers) to see of them. In other words (though this might sound a little strange), they are acting (in a way) like Muslim feminists; giving women the power over men.
Well, this is all fine, but there is the other, more commonly used, argument that women cover themselves because they don't want to attract attention from men. Like the situation on the bus, this also seems like a form of dealing with a problem by not dealing with a problem. How do you educate men into treating women better? If women hide their bodies from the attention of men, then you are emphasising rather than playing down the difference of the sexes. In a strange kind of way, men might get more attracted by this behaviour, as it makes the game of seduction all the more mysterious. And I've seen male behaviour that supports this point of view. Ask yourself this question. Which is more erotic? A naked body, or a partially clothed body? Human psychology would usually choose the latter, because clothing creates the illusion in the mind that the human body is sexual; a naked body is just a biological fact. So the more clothes a women wears, or the more she hides her body, the more it feeds a man's sexual imagination. The fewer clothes she wears, the less imagination men need to use. Of course, if you've ever been on the streets of the UK at night and viewed the number of women in practically no clothing, you'll see what I mean. But the fact is this: humans are sexual animals, and headscarf or no headscarf, men will be attracted to women somehow.All this behaviour does is make men more sexually frustrated, and seek to fulfill their desires in another way. By wearing a headscarf, you give the illusion that men shouldn't have sexual thoughts.

It's time some people got real.

Al Gore v George W Bush/ Gordon Brown v David Cameron

It's election year in the UK, and nobody is sure what the outcome will be.
People are concerned about the personalities of the two main contenders, and I have a slight sense of deja vu.

The 2010 UK general election feels a little like the 2000 US Presiential Election. On one side you have a knowledgeable, though charmless-looking incumbent (AG and GB); on the other, you have a charismatic, though fairly clueless, challenger (GWB and DC).
Well, we all know how the American public voted in 2000; split down the middle and undecided, the Supreme Court finally chose George W Bush after the fiasco of the Florida ballot recount saga. And the polls in the UK are getting closer as each week nears to election day early May.

Sometimes I wonder what people really want in their politicians. Sometimes I wonder if the people voting really care at all about who's in charge. Certainly, those undecided voters who voted for George W Bush were likely swayed by his "charisma". And some people in the UK have been swayed by David Cameron's "charisma". But in 2000 the USA was in an economic boom; in 2010 the UK is in an economic recession. So in that way, the rationale behind the UK electorate is much more important, as it directly affects the direction of the country. The Conservative plan to save the economy is mostly based on cutting public services to the bare bones. But this seems like asking a person on life support to go on a diet.
As experts seem to think a minority government (of which party, no-one's sure) is a distinct possibility, the Liberal Democrats may (emphasis on "may") get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to directly influence the government. Going back to the 2000 US election parallels, the Lib Dems are like the Ralph Nader of UK politics. I have to admit that of the "big three", the Lib Dems have some of the most sensible ideas overall. So they get my vote. Gordon Brown has his flaws, of course (who doesn't?), but he at least has more ideas, experience and (overseas, at least) respectability than David Cameron. DC seems a perfectly nice chap, of course, but I'm not so sure about the rest of his party. Oh, and if the Conservatives get in, maybe Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, will be cock-a-hoop. He'll have a better chance to convince the Scots for more powers and to try and break away from "Tory" England.
As a side note, it's often forgotten that Scotland joined with England because Scotland was bankrupt. Now that Scotland has oil, and England is bankrupt, well...

Why More Anti-Terror Laws Help Terrorists

First of all, I'm not going to repeat the well-known idea that stricter anti-terror laws act as a "clarion call" to other fanatics. This has been said before. What interests me is this from a policing point of view.

In Al Gore's excellent book "The Assualt On Reason", he mentions that the 9/11 terrorists were already known the the FBI and other policing agencies, and were bring tracked using already perfectly well-functioning methods. The reason they were able to cary out the atrocity was because simply through police incompetence, not because there were lack of laws existing to help catch or prevent them. And from a policing point, this is the crucial issue: effective anti-terror policing comes through sheer hard work at infiltration and detection of threats. Creating more laws makes policing more complacent, not less, because it changes the focus of police's attention to merely minimising the risk, rather than seeking out the root cause. Police say they have prevented dozens of potential attacks through traditional infiltration and tracking; they almost never prevented an attack by relying on the new powers they have through more anti-terror laws.

Another point about crime prevention; creating all these new anti-terror laws may seem to work in the short term as a way of making it more difficult for terrorists, but in the medium and longer term, it just forces terrorists to up their game and get smarter. In other words, anti-terror laws make terrorists think smarter. After 9/11, restrictions were placed at airports: the result was the shoebomber. Then there was the "liquids" plot, that resulted in the liquids restrictions at airports. Then there was the more improvised attempted attack over Christmas. So, well done, people in charge; every law passed aides the evolution of terrorism.
I just wish these people had thought about that, before they thought about all the new powers it would give them.

Land Of Fire, City Of Winds

In the place between East and West, lies the Eagle, its wings spread,
its veins run with the blood of victories and predators past defeated,
in its mouth it holds the prize, the victory of victories.
The City Of Winds, they call it.

As ancient as the pyramids, they say.
There they worship the elemental flame of life,
its followers live off the fiery, black blood of the Eagle,
as it nourishes and feeds their own life-blood.
In the Land Of Fire, the ground itself bleeds for its people.

All people flock to the land shaped by the Eagle,
all drawn by the charity of the soil, the majesty of the mountains,
drawn by the clarity of its waters, the modesty of its disciples.
They all flock to the City Of Winds.

Time is slow in the land shaped as the Eagle,
everything and nothing changes, people are the same but different,
powers rise and powers fall, the fiery, black blood of Eagle flows on,
people come and people go, drawn in and pushed away.
In the Land Of Fire, nothing is as it seems.

The disciples are gone from the Land shaped like the Eagle,
drawn elsewhere as the ground bleeds with the blood of its people,
the Eagle's life-blood feeds the victory of victories.
In the City Of Winds, there is no past, present or future.

Byzantine bureaucracy and Kafkaesque capers

I remember the time a few years ago when I was in Istanbul and needed to go to the central police station near Aksaray to get a residence permit:

I arrived there at around 7am with my local helper from school, in order to be near the front of the queue. The station opened operations at 8am, but already there were a number of people there. Applicants has to wait in the reception area until it opened, handing their passport to the officer on duty. Then, when the time came (by which time there were over a hundred people in the reception area), we were called through the turnstile one by one, as though heading for the execution block. Once through the turnstile we exited the reception and walked through the large courtyard that seperated it from the modern main building, a large office block some storeys high. Entering the building, we turned to walk up a flight of stairs to join another queue, which wriggled its way upwards to the next floor. Some minutes later, we arrived at the top of the stairs, being given a ticket from a man in the doorway we were to head through. The ticket gave us a booth number, and the number in line. Walking through the doorway, we were confronted by a long corridor to our left and right that comprised a glass screen. A number of booths (maybe eight or nine) punctuated this long screen. The corridor was less than two metres wide, and the hundred or more applicants were fitted into this space. Working our way through this scrum of humanity, we found our booth. The interesting part was next; although we all had tickets and numbers, as there was no automated system, everyone was asking everyone else what their number was so they knew who should go before who. The result was clusters of people patiently waiting their turn, each one straining to hear what the number of the person being served was. And this was happening in a space about two metres by five (the rough distance between one booth and the next). As there were on average between ten and twenty people waiting by each booth in a ten metres squared area, you can imagine that the atmosphere was funereal. It took between ten and twenty minutes for each person's documents to be processed at the booth, so you can do the math. This waiting game took more than three hours. Oh, and I forgot to mention; beyond the glass screen where the booths were housed there was a long office full of police officers sat, reclined or otherwise, chatting and exchanging jokes, occasionally an orderly coming around with tea, and perhaps a police officer's child gamely skipping through the office playing with the stationery.
After waiting for three hours (our turn had not yet arrived) , the booth staff took a lunch break for an hour. We went for lunch in the police station's canteen, and came back at one o'clock. After another twenty minutes our turn arrived, and our documents were handed over at the booth. But there was more. After spending three hours in Death's Waiting Room (plus lunch break), we then went down the stairs to another booth, stood in another queue (this one mercifully taking only twenty minutes) to receive some slip of paper. This then meant returning to the Waiting Room Of Death and to yet another booth further down the glass corridor. Initially, the booth was empty, but eventually someone came to take the slip of paper, or whatever it was, and then we walked into another room for a discussion with some official-looking person. My helper did all the talking, but after a few exchanges, the official was seemingly satisfied. Thus we were excused, and the application process ended.
I had to return to the same police station some weeks later to receive my permit, though this process was thankfully much shorter - it involved sitting on a bench in a grey corridor with many other random foreigners, after about twenty minutes being summoned to an office in small groups so we could formally receive our documents from an officer. I wanted to kiss the guy.

Religious Intolerance vs. Religious Intolerance

I just watched the recent film "Agora" (starring Rachel Weisz), which deals with Christian riots in Alexandria in Egypt in the 4th century AD. This kind of film powerfully shows how, throughout the ages, Religion has been used by demagogues and fanatics to silence free thinking and rational thought. The rise of Christianity came about partially as a response against the decadent poytheism they saw in Rome; the rise of Islam came about under a very similar social environment in Arabia. One side-effect of this was that learning became skewed through a narrow-minded lens of thought; if it was written in "the book", it was good; if it was not written, it was bad.
I'm not going to spend my time criticising religion here. Any line of thought, whether faith or philosophy, can be misused for someone's own ends. Whereas one religion can be intolerant towards another, the same can be true of those who are not religious - athiesm expressed by some people can be as intolorant of religion as any religious fanatic. Some atheists take atheism to be a kind of "religion" in itself - Communism being just one example. It's not what you believe, but how you show it that's important. I've met a number of devout people during my time as a teacher abroad; I respect any one who chooses to live their life to good ends, but has the respect for humanity to not force their beliefs onto others, or, even worse, makes a show of moral superiority.
The example of the Danish publication of the offensive images of Muhammed is a great example of the divide here. Muslims around the world were horrified and disgusted. Europeans, however, were confused by the Muslim reaction, and some countries published the images as a sign to show how much more open-minded they were compared to Muslims. Iran, in reaction, published anti-Semitic images, to the offense of Europe. But this is the point - the Iranians were consistent with the European mentality. If it is fair to denegrate Islam, why not Judiaism? Why not Hinduism? Why not publish homophobic imagery? For that matter, let's have a competition to publish the most offensive image ever! Racist, sexist, violent, it doesn't matter! In Europe, people want to be indulgently offensive! In Denmark, being "tolerant" means you can offend any person you want to with full support of the state media! Yes, this shows how "enlightened" we are. And if you have a problem with that, then that only shows how "intolerant" you are of other people. Yes, according to this rationale, "morality" is equal to "intolerance".
"Religious intolerance" can have two meanings: a) intolerance of other religious (fanaticism); b) intolerance of religions as a whole. "Intolerance" is quite a flexible term, really. You can be intolerant of intolerance, for example (making you an "Intolerance Intolerant").
Funny, really.

Due to (un)popular demand...

Ooh, things are getting scary! It's true when they say that if you can't say anything positive, then it's better to say nothing at all. It's true that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. It's true that it's the easiest thing in the world to criticise. It's true that the earth is flat. It's true that the Sun revolves around the Sun. It's true that democracy is over-rated. It's true that being an armchair critic is easier than being critical of armchairs (I'll let you chew over the meaning of that one...hahaha). It's true that truth is relative. It's true that Socrates drank poison. It's true that Washington DC was modelled on Rome, and therefore that makes Barack Obama the postmodern Caesar - although I hope he's using Cicero as his inspiration rather than Sulla. It's true that things don't always go the way you want. It's true that sometimes the truth can hurt. It's true that the average life expectancy is around 75 years in the Western World, though it drops to around 55 in some parts of Glasgow. It's true that Americans spends roughly four times as much as the rest of the Western World on health care, and for their efforts have an average life expectancy that is somewhat less than the rest of the Western World. It's true that oil makes the world go round; money just helps the oil go round. Around, around, around the merry-go-round we go. Merry, merry, merry. Go, go, go. He he he. Ha ha ha. Am I laughing? Yes, I am.

Starting Up

My first post on the blogspot page. I hope to use the blog for my various creative projects - writing, mainly. I'm planning to add some stuff to it shortly!