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In a classic story of man bites dog, my already notorious little nation has descended to another nadir in the course of human history. My only question is how is this in the news? Especially considering what probably happens in Wales on a daily basis.
courtesy of Gil, Blankey, and Butta Phat
More proof that perception is reality. Would you have seen Fight Club if you'd seen this trailer?
courtesy of Durnell
More dispatches from my Dad in Djibouti (say it with me kids: Djibouti!)
Back to sunny Djibouti. I was invited these last few days to lunch twice in a "traditonal" restarant of Yemeni origin, "Mukhbaaz", it is called, serving baby lamb (and goat) and fish oven roasted - and very loud talking as a side dish. One was "baladi khalis" [ed: country] , meaning no airconditioning, no frills, and the other a bit better, with AC. But both compete in talking loud (kawareek) [ed: Arabic for "shouting and hubbub"] and banging chairs and tables while pretending to arrnge them after each dining group leaves.
The food, I must confess, was good, but Mom would most likely not touch it, bearing in mind the general state of hygiene. Washing your hands is close to laundry. A heap of Omo [ed: powdered detergent] is put next to the "sink" where water is very salty. I tried the bathroom ( as usual), and I had to go through the kitchen where the fish is kept in a huge trough and where about a dozen over dressed men and women were milling (and shouting). The side dishes (besides kawareek) is a sort of banana paste, rice mixed with a mysterious stuff and something that looks like " sha3eeriya" [ed: Sudanese sweet pasta typically dessert]with cement.
Did I tell you that they have a souk called " souk alzubab" [ed: Arabic for "Fly Market"]? This is the veggy/meat market, which explains the flies and the appropriate name. I did not write it "fly market" lest you read it "flea market" which gives a totally different meaning and ambiance. Money changers are always women -overdressed and big-bottomed, big-bossomed, and sitting on sidewalks all around "down town".
Tomorrow, the President ( bel 3arragi) will decorate UNESCO with the highest national medal : the Palme de Trois Etoiles ! I had to postpone my departure (not an easy feat) to accept that singular honour. You will receive a full report on the event.
As of yesterday, I have an apartment in San Francisco. I won't be moving up there proper till the middle of the month, most likely. In the meantime I'll be moving my belongings up there little by little and trying to arrange the place ahead of time (unlike my usual methodology of boxing everything up, moving it in and then sleeping on boxes till the chiropractic bills become too steep). This whole thing marks a shift in my life here in sunny (actually, rainy, right now) California and I'm both dreading and looking forward to it. Wish me luck.
I had dinner in the city last night with my friend K who was in town for business. I picked her up at her hotel in the ritzy part of town and we drove to North Beach for a nice dinner since she was on the company dime and that's a good excuse to do it up like Croesus on a bender. After an unsuccessful attempt to find parking on our own we resorted to valet parking. Now I am not a man who has much pride when it comes to the ride he's in, but I did wince a bit at giving the car to the valet as it is a POS. The poor fellow was quite mystified that such a well-dressed gentleman as myself was emerging from a car that had seen better days before it had seen much much worse days. It was even more painful to see the guy driving off in a car with a slipping transmission. I made him turn the car around when he brought it back too, and so I felt compelled to tip generously.
An excerpt from my Dad's obervations on his recent trip to the aforementioned country. When I was a kid I would laugh and laugh and laugh at the mention of it. I was snickering this time for different reasons.
On visiting Djibouti-again !
In Djibouti since Sarurday. Isn't the world such wonderful,fascinating place? Such variety,such diversity, and only an hour flight from Addis. The faces, the buildings, the trees, the food and the temprament...everything is so different. And in the middle of all this, people, educated people, are speaking in Somali : wa7a, wa7a, 7ey ..etc And loudly !
That evening ,I attended the National Day of the Artist. Rapping in Somali! The male singers look malnourished, with bony faces, pinheads, protruding little ears and mouths too full of teeth. The female performers are "healthy", big bosomed and big bottomed, and overdressed in layers and layers of colourful material.
So many shabashib and flip-flops !
Shirtsleeves buttoned to the hilt,belts, and what seems like baggy pants till you notice that people are so thin their clothes look 2 sizes too big.
Sunday I met the Minister of Culture (Post and telecomm!). His office was soon full of people who has no reason being there - and are all talking loud and at the same time in Somali ! We were served lukewarm Tang in jumbo glasses. While I was trying to have a "profound and serious" discussion , the Minister (who recently suffered a stroke - a bit off centre) , was pantering with his friends in Somali, throwing a few words in Arabic my side and receivimg with half attention the few words in perfect French that I have under my belt.
I took my leave (hug,hug! How is Mohamed Wardi? Ya salaaam!!), I wanted to go the toilet. I was taken agian through the Minister's Office to use his executive loo. His friends were still there, but he apparently wanted to use the same facility. When he came out, he was somehow not surprised to see me in his office again, and casually said , "a' gauche, a' gauche", giving direction to the place.
Another very interesting phenomenon in Djibouti government offices is the crowds that hover aimlessly ( it seems), talking loudly in Somali. There are usually large numbers of ladge, overdressed, big bottomed, big bosomed women who are difficult to categorize (cleaners? secretaries? wives? gatecrashers?). Loud ,hinna, gold, and shabaship [flip flops] galore !
Djibouti is very dirty, but in a "cute" homely way, rustic (maybe rusty?). People come in a variety of colours and " designs". They are laid back, relaxed and always loud. The climax of the day comes after mid-day when the ghatt plane arrives from Ethiopia and all the French veneer peels away as people rush to get their daily ration of the magic green stuff) very expensive about $20 a "serving" Life stops at about 1 pm. What approaches a traffic jam dissipates by 1 o'clock, as people rush home with their fodder and change into ghat chewing attire--a wraparound piece of lightly checkered cloth.
I love it ! My kind of town! (Did I mention the swarms of slow flying flies? heavy and fat.)
To be continued. I think !
There are times when I wish I was a far more glib writer, and that it was easy for me to pump out the dross that I pass off as pithy observations of life. Usually those times are in the wake of a full day of grist for the mill which I have to put down in the 15 minutes before I am to go to bed. Times like now ...
This week I have been at SPIE Microlithography 2006, which is an optics conference attended by many folks in the industry and academia or in fact anyone involved in optics. Like any conference/trade show it's also attended by tons of vendors and the folks who make the things that make you go "Ooh". They bring with them, not only news of the latest materials and equipment with which to make the next generation of semiconductors, but many trinkets and baubles, affectionately known as swag. Swag is in many cases the only thing that makes these conferences worth attending. I mean why buy a stress ball when you can get one from Nikon that turns yellow when you squeeze it? [ aside: that's not the only type of swag, and we'll get into that a little bit later]
Needless to say I decided to be "Our Man at SPIE" (pronounced "spy"), but I will admit that the best account of it is by Chris Mack, aka the Gentleman Scientist. Dr Mack - and he is called that apparently by everyone, including his Mom - created a program that does optical simuliations and then retired with his millions to Texas where he apparently lives the life of a country gentleman and scientist. Which is a pity since this is the life I had intended for myself. The Nerd's Eye View is only a stepping stone folks, to fame, fortune and the life of science notoriety that I can only aspire to.
As I mentioned earlier, stress balls are not the only type of swag you can get. The vendors, in the spirit of spending money to make money, spend lavish amont of cash setting up "hospitality suites" in the hotels adjoining the convention center. While the hospitality suites do not contain booth babes or massage chairs (that's a great idea for next year!), they do typically contain hors d'oeuvres, sushi bars and copious amounts of alcohol. For the price of a simple business card (more on that later) you gain access to this oasis of earthly pleasures and are also entered into a drawing for all sorts of high quality swag (iPods and the like) that your corporate anti-corruption policy won't allow you to accept anyway. Between sessions we spent time in the hospitality suites eating salmon served on silver platters and shrimp skewers and talking loudly about our jobs and how we were considering buying a new system from the vendor.
This brings me to my other point: SPIE and other conference/trade shows are an opportunity to be young lions. We move in large packs (not like young lions at all) from exhibit to exhibit demanding baubles and sometimes not even bothering to feign interest in the wares on display. This behavior is made more flagrant by the fact that, unlike many of the other attendants at the conference, we work for a rather large and influential semiconductor manufacturer and hence we throw around our weight. Imagine the Capulets or the Montagues swaggering around Verona filching apples off carts or sneering at wine merchants. They need us, we know this, ergo, we are jerks. More or less. I don't want to overstate the issue. After all, we're also just happy to be there.
All year long we are essentially slaves and for one week, give or take, we are fawned upon with a solicitousness that borders on the obsequious. Can we be faulted for wallowing in it like pigs in shit?
Just in case no one knows what the cartoons were all about. A little overwrought I think, but worth a look. Better to be informed about the reasons you are burning down a McDonalds in a Kabul suburb.
In a slightly related issue, I was listening to the BBC news on the way home tonight and was amused to hear that there is currently a Hebrew production of "The Producers" in Tel Aviv. Apparently "Springtime for Hitler and Germany" is going over a lot better than people thought it would! They still haven't burned the theater down, or protested in the streets, not surprisingly. Hopefully we'll get there soon ...
link courtesy of Butta Phat Les
Zefrank sums it all up drily.
link courtesy of GDK
I wasn't going to write about any of the events that have been going on in Europe and elsewhere, but people have been asking me about it nonstop. I think this may be because I am the only Muslim they know, but I also hope it's because they know I have some insight on world events. I've answered questions a couple of times this week and I may as well weigh in on this most public of forums, and I may as well discuss a couple of other topics as well.
On the subject of the cartoons published in the Danish newspaper, I have to say it's proof of the existence of chaos. Unlike the furor over the Satanic Verses, this is not a case where a work of fiction is being misread, or not read at all. The cartoons are fairly clear in their sentiment, and have been published in a wide variety of publications. I myself looked them up on the net once it became clear that this would be the new casus belli for some elements in both the East and the West. I have to say I was a somewhat impressed with the art style of the most prominent of the images (the one with the Prophet Mohammed's turban turning into a bomb). It was done in a style reminiscent of Persian art from around the 15th century - really beautiful, but ultimately heavy handed.
The issue of course is that the cartoons do not fictionalize or try to suppose a fictitious version of the past. They instead depict the Prophet of a major faith as a figure of violence. The violence that is depited is also somewhat indiscriminate - after all bombs don't choose who they kill. Whatever the actions of the religion's adherents (and I think most of us can agree that they are as representative of the faith as a whole as the Branch Davidians were of Protestant Christianity), it is hardly fair or accurate rather to paint not just the faith itself but the founder of said faith in that way. Once again, the analogies are not hard to find: despite the actions of Crusaders, the Inquisition or the townsfolk of Salem, it would be incorrect to say that Jesus was bloodthirsty. Or at least it would be on fairly shakey ground. The situation is exacerbated, of course, when the cartoons are introduced into the world in its current state, and the consequences are easily seen. Furthermore there is the matter of the lack of full understanding of Islam that one finds in the West as evinced in statments like the one from the Danish newspaper in question, whose editor said that they had printed cartoons of the Pope and others, as if these figures are equivalent to the Prophet.
Having said that, the reaction in the Muslim world has been less than rational and a little embarassing. Protests I can imagine, though the actions of the mobs in Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and other places are simply shameful. It should be understood that there is a barely contained rage in the populations of these countries and indeed the entire Muslim world, due to poverty, governmental repression and the general disappointment with the status of Muslims in the world today (real or imagined, since after all perception is reality). In an environment like that it is easy to unleash that rage and then the behavior of the mob cannot be controlled. One need only look at Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds [Mckay] or The Great Cat Massacre [Darnton] to see the effects of the mob. Though initially prompted by the publication of the cartoons, this reaction was provoked further by the distribution by the so-called leaders of the Danish Muslim community of the cartoons from the paper itself and other cartoons that never made it to the printed page to the Egyptian media. While this act in itself may have been performed in good faith, its results were undeniably pernicious. A representative of that community subsequently refused to take any responsibility for the violence that had ensued, which makes him a hypocrite as well as a fool.
This of course doesn't absolve the other newspapers throughout the Continent that persisted in publishing and republishing the cartoons, ostensibly in defense of free speech. I fully support free speech, but I should point out that freedom is not simply an excuse to do whatever one wants. There is certain amount in circumspection that must be shown. Once the cartoons are published, discussing them and their impact is one thing, republishing them in an atmosphere that is already tense is as irresponsible as the leaders of the Muslim community in Denmark sending out pamphlets inciting their coreligionists to violence and then washing their hands of the whole thing. There's no real surprise there, unless one is hopelessly naive. The other issue is the insistence of hiding behind "free speech" when one is printing incendiary material. While I am no conspriacy theorist, I do know that Europe still harbors bad memories of it's history with Islam. For example, in justifying their crackdown on Chechnya, the Russians have on occasion claimed that Europe should be grateful that they, the Russians, had been holding the Muslim hordres at bay for so many centuries. A more obvious example is the one of the Balkans where a battle 500 years past was used as a justification for the invasion of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the despicable treatment of its inhabitants.
So there's blame all around: Muslim leaders, the Western Media and of course all of us who sit complicitly silent allowing ourselves to be cowed into silence whether with the threat of being branded as heretics or defilers of the temple of free speech. The situation will, like most wildfires, take a long time to bring back into hand; the people returned to their homes, the press with a sense of a real mission, and perspective to all the concerned parties.
Let me just say up front that I am not a liar. I am also not a moral paragon by any means, but I am not a liar. I do, however, like a little bit of fiction from time to time. For example, you're on a plane headed somewhere far off, and you're seated next to a guy. We all know that guy, he's middle-aged, tubby, over-friendly and in insurance. He's only here on business and from St Louis, he's off to Omaha, Nebraska where his wife, June (who's got the best rhubarb pie recipe in three counties), will be waiting to pick him up and boy is he looking forward to seeing her. Plus he hasn't gotten to go their church in 10 days and a man needs to be close to his church, and you wouldn't happen to have accepted Christ as your personal saviour have you? Yeah. That guy. So to him I am not the Lo Fat Mo, mild mannered media gnat. Instead I am Dr von Lophatstern, eminent rocket scientist on his way to an international conference where I will discuss a recent breakthrough in interstellar travel. I am newly married to a biophysicist whom I met while on assignment in NASA's satellite station outside Ft Lauderdale.
A little fiction. But at least it's something fairly put together, consistent and only as far from the truth as the handle of door is when you're fumbling around in the dark. It's rich with detail and cheesy though it may be, it's got life to it.
I was at a party recently and it wasn't going well. In an attempt to liven it up for myself I started trying to mingle and meet folks. Now I'll admit I was going about it in a slightly boorish way, having given up the idea of having any fun and at this point just trying to sharpen my observation skills. So I walk up to two women, one of whom looked South American and the other who was hard to pin down. By way of conversation I ask where she's from and she says Colombia, which is odd because she looks Brazilian and I say so. Her friend responds that they're both Colombian [how lovely!] and apropos of nothing tells me that they are married.
aside: This is the point where I stop time and look around. I take a quick stock of the situation and read the whole story. I am - to them - some boorish, drunken male trying to "get to know them". They are trying to discourage me as quickly as possible and since I seem to fit the model of an ignorant male (where do they get these ideas?) they go for the easy bait.
Back to our story: So you're married, that's wonderful! How long? 2 years. "2 years!" I say, and probe a little further. Now I'm no big city lawyer, but I can ask a good question or two when I've a mind to, and I can certainly smell bullshit when it is presented to me in a bakelite bowl. So I smiled and asked more questions and watched. Then they left, I left, and I thought nothing of it. At first.
A bit later I started thinking about it, and I got a little peeved. Now mind you, I'm not interested in either of these girls, but I am interested in their story. I am mostly interested in what made them think I'd buy it. I mean it's not impossible or even implausible for two women to be married, certainly not in the Bay Area. But it's insulting that they'd go with the obvious "we're lesbians" ploy - a cliche in the party environment. Especially when their story is flimsy and painfully extemporaneous. It's not the lie that's the problem, it's the shoddiness of it, it's the poor story and the lack of regard for the audience, viz me. I'm a big fan of workmanship, of the craft of it, and terrible disappointed when people take the easy way out.
I got my new business cards the other day. The company has voluntarily undergone a "rebranding" which is as painful as it sounds, conjuring up the images of steers being held down on the open prairie and the smell of burning leather and hair. It's been terribly expensive and you can see it in the business card where they've literally cut corners.
[yes Tim, this is what I did with my sick day]
The phenomenon that is David Beckham and his wife, ex-Spice Girl Victoria Beckham (aka Posh Spice) is something that is endlessly entertaining to me. More entertaining is their interview with Ali G. There's nothing like the sight of an athlete trying to match wits with a comedian, it's like watching a chimp trying to derive Maxwell's equations from first principles.
The other part I loved was the way that conversation with Ali G drew Posh into less than posh diction. Wonderful! It's a study in how far apples fall from trees, to wit: not far. Hilarious!
link courtesy of CDC
Keifer emailed me earlier this week, asking if we could have lunch. Mind you, I had already been talked to by Hatchet Face about the incident. He wanted to guage my true reaction to the whole thing, partly on the lawsuit front and partly on the "concern for coworkers, and I had a friend in college who had a similar experience" and so on front. It was vaguely tense and somewhat forced, like a blind date, which was odd for me. After all the situation was out in the open and I'd pretty much said my peice and put it all behind me. I had hoped for the same amount of openness on the part of Keifer Sutherland, but no. Instead we talked synchrotrons, siblings and the joys of dating (mostly the lack of joy on that front). As lunch began to wind down I took pity on the poor sap and said, "Look man, we're ok. You didn't know and now you do and you're not going to do that again, so let's just relax, eh?" It didn't do much good, but served to calm things down a wee bit before heading back to work.
As you may or may not know, I am a devotee of comics and webcomics in particular, and webcomics with a twisted sense of humor in specifically particular. The Achewood strip from the other day is too hilarious for words. I think I was on the floor for the lines:
"He was like the Thomas Edison of handing a dude his ass"
and
"Oh my god just like the greats he protected his family by fighting under a Soubriquet Rouge"
Gold, Jerry, gold.
It all started with my cousin's phone call last weekend. She was worked up about a visit to Bayside. Bayside is a mostly white neighborhood in Queens, NY, famous for its Sopranos-like residents and for race issues. It's no Bensonhurst but then again, does it have to be? At any rate, the car she was in was blocking the street and when honked at they moved it. In response she and her girlfriend were met with the finger, and then, at the window of their car, a belligerent middle aged gent who (of all the words he could have possibly used to express his displeasure) chose to use the word "nigger". "Just like a nigger," he apparently said to them, repeatedly.
My cousin was, understandably, in shock. After all, this is not 1955 and she was not in Mississippi, and yet here she was hearing the sort of language that one had thought confined to movies about the "bad old days". I tried to calm her down on the phone (this is days after the event mind you), and remind her that she did the right thing by not starting a ruckus right there in the street. That would have been playing into his hands and in a neighborhood like that could have caused her far more pain than just to her dignity. Still I was appalled by the whole thing and I shared her impotent rage. How could such a thing be said in this day and age?
Flash forward to today, at the morning meeting, where one our mid-level managers (Keifer) was referring to something that hadn't happend in a long time as not having happened in "a coon's age". I'm not sure if he realized that the expression has nothing to do with raccoons or any other cuddly woodland creatures. I felt a cold knot in my stomach that was mirrored by the silence in the room. Even our Ditka-like floor supervisor shot me a glance of "are you going to flip out?" My leg twitched and I calmly stood up and walked out of the room, and took the corporate way out - a strongly worded email. Does that make me a coward or a fool? It certainly made me an angry oaf that I snapped at my lunch partners and stomped off to eat by myself.
I hadn't mentioned this lately, but my left knee has been hurting quite a bit lately, especially after soccer. At first I thought it was the inevitable march of age, since I am a geezer of the old variety, a mere hair's breadth away from sitting on porch in a rocking chair and waving my cane at those durned kids on my lawn. My other knee hasn't been hurting at all, though, which raised my suspicions. So I scheduled an appointment with my doctor.
Unfortunately it turns out my doctor is on sabbatical (Lord, when's my time gon' come?), and I had to schedule with the fellow covering him, Dr Lewis. Dr Lewis is what doctors were in the mid-1950's Hair Brylcreem'ed to within an inch of its life, grey complexion that suggests snoke breaks every 30 minutes and the bedside demeanor of an enema tube. He kept moving around the room while asking quick questions and barely looked at me. When he finally deigned to sit down and look at my knee, he actually grabbed the wrong knee and was half-way through telling me there was nothing wrong with it before listening to me tel him it was the wrong one. In the end he sort of told me the equivalent of "take two aspirin and call me in the morning" and bustled me out the door. What's medicine come to in this country that a doctor can't take the time to do a thorough exam? I think I need a second opinion. Is there a doctor in the audience?
I had no idea this word existed, or what it meant. Frankly it sounds made up, doesn't it? I ran across the abbreviation BOUS in one of our parameter sets when I first started working at the Blue Beast. It seems that it is a holdover from the days of [begin dork-speak segment] screw-actuated stages, which were not always perfectly matched, leading to a different overlay offset depending on what direction you were scanning[end dork-speak segment]. Hence, as the plough furrows. I learned all this from my colleague who owns that particular part of the process.
The problem of course is that the word sounds completely fake, in the same way that budonkadonk does. That's compounded with my colleague's dead pan delivery to almost anything. Just listen to yourself saying the word: boo-strof-a-donic.
"Did you hear that new Black Eyed Peas song? It's boustrophedonic yo!"
"Twenty dollars for that? That's boustrophedonic!"
"I'm sorry, sir, your wound, it's gone boustrophedonic, we'll have to amputate."
It's amazing that a word like this really exists, and it's a pity we can't put it to more use.