Been a while. Going to be a while again, real
soon.
I'm anything but an expert on the Ukraine, and
least qualified of anyone I know to comment on the goings-on there. But somehow
I suspect that things aren't going very well for the regime types when this
sort of thing breaks
out:
Journalists on
Ukraine's state-owned channel - which had previously given unswerving support to
Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych - have joined the opposition, saying they have
had enough of "telling the government's lies".
Journalists on
another strongly pro-government TV station have also promised an end to the bias
in their reporting. The turnaround in news coverage, after years of toeing the
government line, is a big setback for Mr
Yanukovych.
I believe it's clear that
the outgoing government pulled out all stops, ethical and otherwise, to ensure
their favored, pro-Moscow son was elected. The question I have is, what next?
Ukraine under Kuchma gained a reputation for corrupt government. That starts in
the political branch, but once it spreads to the bureaucracy (see also, U.N. )
it's pretty hard to arrest the cancer just with a change of government. And it's
in no one's interest to see a bloodbath - at this point the only remaining
question is what side the security services will come down on. In the short
term.
In the long term, I wonder what
this will mean in Putin's Russia , which appears to have at the
very least lost momentum towards a more thoroughgoing spread of what we in the
West understand as a healthy democratic
system.
I don't have any notion how
any of this is going to end. Neither, I think, do the
Ukrainians.
----------------------
Tired
of that? Me too...
Wednesday I took
the bike to work. It had been a while, and the weather has gotten cooler here in
San Diego. Gearing up for the morning commute meant finding the liner for my
jacket, etc. Still, once I got on the bike, the ride was great - it felt
wonderful to be on a motorcycle again. In a car, you see the world pass by you
as though it were on a television screen. You are a mere spectator, looking out
through your glass and steel frame.
Not so on a bike. When you turn your
head to check for traffic for a lane change on a bike, the cold lash of the
November air whips across the newly exposed flesh on your neck, reminding you
that are alive. Crossing the Coronado Bay Bridge, I have discovered that there
is a bakery hidden somewhere beneath the cloverleaf - I have never seen it, but
I smell it every morning I ride the bike to work. The smell of baking bread and
pastry evokes the memory of every bakery there was. On a bike, you are a part of
the environment through which you move in a way that car drivers (even those
driving convertibles) never will be. You are in the
moment.
I hit the apex of the bridge
span, and there was the lovely little village of Coronado opening up before me
like a sparkling emerald floating on the bay. Looking down from the bridge's
elevation, the city looks strangely greener than it really ought to - most of
the houses and businesses are hidden from plain sight behind the trees,
affording only peeking glimpses that the island is inhabited. On the
southwestern shore, the Hotel Del Coronado thrusts itself from the verge, with
it's quaint towers and minarets. To the right, the nuclear powered aircraft
carriers are a dark smudge along the shoreline, a backdrop for the fleet of
sailboats in the inner harbor, all lined up like good soldiers to the prevailing
wind and tide. In the far distance and across the channel is the thrusting
peninsula of Point Loma, pointing the way out to sea like some hoary, speechless
mariner of old. It is utterly charming tableau viewed from this vantage
point.
Once you have descended
through the old toll plaza however, you are in the city itself and you are
struck by nothing more than all the signs telling you which way you may not
turn, depending upon the time of day. Tens of thousands of Sailors cross the
bridge ever day, heading to work on the ships and staffs at Naval Air Station
North Island, Coronado, California. They couldn't possible afford to live here,
so they commute. And every block has a no right (or left) turn sign to keep
them all on the main arteries. Away from the citizens. Away from the taxpayers.
And then on the last possible street
before going on base, a street far and away from the normal hubble-bubble of the
hoi-polloi, trafficked only by the Navy types, your humble scribe performed a
wee bit of a "California stop," running, as he was, a trifle late for work. And
saw the police cruiser parked in a perfect position to observe
him.
So I got my ticket from a
painfully young patrolman, backed up by his more senior mentor. Who clearly took
his job, and himself, very seriously. I was very polite, and as cheerful as I
could be. In spite of the fact that his ambush position was clearly designed to
target servicemen, those who were only moments from being on base. I wanted to
thank him for supporting the troops, but it wouldn't have been the right thing
to say.
Yah, well. He had me dead to
rights. But still.
We don't live
there because we can't afford to. So we don't pay taxes there. Except when we
do.
---------------------
Another
slice of life was Tuesday! The PRT, of whose pleasures I have already written . Especially the absurd distance
of the run. But even better, as I got to work I immediately had a chief petty
officer in my face badgering my about a urinalysis, a random drug sweep. Which
you get used to, if only grudgingly. Because you have to think that at some
point, maybe in your 20th year of service? They'll think maybe you don't do
drugs.
Lead by example, yeah, yeah, I
know.
Gah.
---------------------
Thanksgiving
was as perfect as such things are allowed to be, on this side of the veil. The
Hobbit cooked a wonderful meal (of course), all the progeny were in attendance
and the conversation was wonderful. The eldest two held up their end
wonderfully, while the Kat for the most part kept her peace. Only later, sated
and groggy, as I moved to the couch for a little light reading, did she
materialize for
more:
"Wrestle?"
No,
hun - dad's a-stuffed. It wouldn't do to
wrestle.
Which was all to the good
for her. Courtesies thereby out of the way, she felt liberated to talk. And
talk. And talk. About, oh, nothing at all really. But she doesn't talk that much
in front of the other kids, and so when she talks I like to listen. And you can
learn the most amazing things about the world, by listening to a ten year
old.
---------------------
Here's
a good read about Thanksgiving, culture, myths and letting things be from David
Gelernter . (By the way, these WSJ article links don't last forever,
so read it while you can.)
Entry
grafs:
The First
Thanksgiving is one of those heartwarming stories that every child used to know,
and some up-to-date teachers take special delight in suppressing. Many teachers
approach children nowadays with the absurd presumption that they are
triumphalist little bigots who must be taken down a notch and made to grasp that
their country has made mistakes. In fact they are little ignoramuses who leave
high school believing that their country has made nothing but mistakes, and they
never do learn what revisionist history is a revision
of.
It is especially
sad when children don't learn the history of Thanksgiving, which is that rarest
of anomalies--a religious festival celebrated by many faiths. The story of the
first Thanksgiving would inspire and soothe this nation if only we would let
it--this nation so deeply divided between Christians and non-Christians or
nominal Christians, where Christians are a solid majority on a winning streak
and many non-Christians are scared to death, of "Christian fundamentalists"
especially.
He's got something there
- there seems to be a lot of fear and loathing in certain parts of the body
politic about the whole "fundie" thing. I just don't get it, really I don't. I
had a bit of an exchange at another blog (I won't share which, so don't ask)
about whether it wasn't all just overblown? Something to scare the kids with?
"Look out, or John Ashcroft's 'Fundies of Amerika' will come and get
you!"
Hmm.
I'm
just not that worried about it, myself.
There's a certain type of
atheist/agnostic that not only doesn't believe, but can't stand it that anyone
does. Not like it's making the least impact on his or her life. Just doesn't
like it. I can sort of understand agnosticism (far better than I can atheism -
hard, physical evidence either way seems pretty inconclusive to me) - I went
through a phase of that myself, lasted quite a number of years. In the meantime
I've take a number of itty-bitty steps in the opposite direction.
I just don't quite get the anger
that some folks have that other folks might be happy in their "cherished
illusions."
Like I said, the politics
I don't worry about. I'm a constitutional constructionist, and I believe we've
got that
covered.
------------------------
Have
you ever noticed that the older you get (and the greater your disposable income)
the more expensive are those things that you really want, but can't
afford?
It's not about
needing.
It's about
wanting.
And
it seems that the wants get just that little bit more expensive with each pay
raise. Just, you know - keeping pace. And a
bit.
See also: Consumerism. See
consumerism run. Run, consumerism,
run!
Just that little tid-bit,
post-Thanksgiving.
--------------------------
I'm
a terrible Christmas shopper (apropos of nothing, nothing at all). Last year I
was in one of our major malls on December 24th, living the dream. I felt bad
about that, until I saw the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs doing some Christmas
shopping in the same mall.
And then I
felt better. Because misery doesn't just love company. It
demands
it.
---------------------------
All
over the map tonight, yah? Well. You get what you pay
for.
Have a great
weekend!
Posted @
06:14 PM
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Posted in
""
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Sendit
|
Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
