Currylingus

Sat, 09 Sep 06 Flight 14:15 Depart Toronto, ON (YYZ)16:26 Arrive Calgary, AB (YYC)

Sat, 16 Sep 06 Flight WS 672 17:05 Depart Calgary, AB (YYC)22:46 Arrive Toronto, ON (YYZ)

Off to Calgary on 9/9, yeehaw dingly dangly rootin' tootin' honky tonky Calgary. Go see my grandpappy and grandmammy and uncle/aunty/cousin and YOU. That's right, alla you. Y'all are reading this and you are about to email me to tell that "Yes!" you are indeed going to be in cowtown between those dates and "Why, yes!" you would love to show me around your sessy town.

One more YOU, you who I haven't talked to in years and whose January email I haven't replied to because I'm feeling akward and who I would love to see again, you need to send me another email and take a day off because I'm coming to ruin your city.

It seems we can only look at the Middle East and its inhabitants (the Israelis excepted) through one of two lenses: Either we completely ignore the cultural, economic and political differences (including the hugely unequal power relationship between the global hegemon and a collection of fragmented, post-colonial nation states) or we retreat into Orientalist cliches about the inscrutible Arab and/or Islamic soul.

The first view is essentially that of the Marine colonel in Full Metal Jacket who declares confidently that inside every Vietnamese (he used a different word) there is an American, trying to get out. This is also the Cheney administration's official view, expressed every time Shrub reads one of his canned lines about the universal appeal of democracy and freedom -- freedom, of course, being most emphatically not defined as freedom from foreign occupation or economic globalization or the onslaught of a Western-dominated media culture unconsciously bent on conquering the world.

Billmon

Testing with Flock. So fresh and so clean. Post window kicks Blogger's ass...which isn't difficult but is still worthy of mention. Flickr pics availiable in a tap. Select text, right click and post away. Yeah, I like it a lot. Hope this shit works. Publish...