Back to the good ol' days

No wonder Putin and Bush are such great friends, they have a lot in common.

From today’s Moscow Times http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2006/01/18/002.html

Putin Quietly Signed NGO Bill Last Week

By Francesca Mereu

Staff Writer

President Vladimir Putin last week quietly signed into law the bill that will increase state control over nongovernmental organizations, but the news was not made public until Tuesday, when it was published in the official government newspaper.

The seven-day delay appeared to be an attempt to avoid embarrassing questions from new German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who made her first visit to Moscow on Monday and met with NGO leaders after her talks with Putin.

The bill flew through both houses of parliament amid mounting public criticism late last year, and Putin approved it on Jan. 10 -- exactly 14 days after it reached his desk. By law, Putin has only 14 days to decide whether to sign a bill.

The law will come into force April 10.

The notice about Putin's signing was published in Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Tuesday.

A similar notice could not be found in the section of the Kremlin web site devoted to new laws on Tuesday night. The presidential press service explained that the web site was reserved for laws that the public needs to know about, Gazeta.ru reported.

Asked why Rossiiskaya Gazeta had waited a week to publish the announcement, the newspaper's deputy editor, Timofei Kuznetsov, said, "This is not a pressing law. It does not come into force from the moment it is published, but within 90 days [of being signed]," Gazeta.ru reported.

In actuality, Kremlin watchers said, the presidential administration has developed a practice of being secretive about controversial legislation.

"In this case, the reason was simple: It was clear that Merkel was going to raise the NGO issue, and the Kremlin tried to avoid giving her the occasion to do so," said Yury Korgunyuk, a political analyst with the Indem think tank.

Lev Ponomaryov, head of For Human Rights, a leading NGO, said the Kremlin had succeeded in avoiding a possible confrontation. "The bill got only mild criticism from Merkel," he said.

At a news conference after Monday's talks with Putin, Merkel noted the "many objections among the public" to the legislation and said Germany would "closely monitor how it is observed in practice."

German Embassy spokesman Brett Wolfgang declined comment on the issue Tuesday, except to reiterate that Merkel would wait "to see the practical application of the new legislation."

Putin stressed at Monday's news conference that "no harm will be done to NGOs that operate in accordance with their stated goals."

The law establishes a new agency to oversee the registration, financing and activities of the more than 400,000 NGOs that operate in Russia. The agency -- not the court -- will determine if an NGO should be shuttered for offenses such as using foreign money for political activities and engaging in activities unrelated to its stated goals.

After vocal protests from Russian and foreign NGOs while the bill was still in the Duma, Putin ordered deputies to remove a requirement that foreign NGOs reregister as Russian entities and become subject to stricter rules -- a rule that would have closed all foreign NGOs.

The legislation followed a warning by Putin last summer that Russia would not tolerate NGOs that used foreign money to finance political activities. The Kremlin is worried about the key role that NGOs played in the peaceful election-time uprisings that ousted regimes in Ukraine in 2004 and in Georgia a year earlier. Duma elections will be held next year, and the presidential election will take place in 2008.

Yelena Yershova, the president of the Consortium of Women's NGOs and a member of the newly formed Public Chamber, expressed dismay that Putin had signed the bill before the Public Chamber had had a chance to weigh in.

"We had a lot of remarks concerning that bill," she said.

"I don't understand what the president is doing. On the one hand, he takes steps to reinforce civil society and creates the Public Chamber. But on the other side, he backs that terrible law that would restrict NGO activities," she said.

Yershova said Public Chamber members would raise the issue when they met with Putin during their inaugural meeting on Sunday.

Putin ordered the chamber set up after the Beslan hostage-taking in 2004, ostensibly as way to give civil society a voice in government affairs. Critics call the chamber toothless. It can offer nonbinding recommendations to the government and the parliament on domestic policy, weigh in on legislation, request investigations into possible breaches of the law and request information from state agencies.

Alexander Chuyev, a Rodina Duma deputy, predicted Tuesday that no more than 5 percent to 7 percent of NGOs would be closed under the new law, Ekho Moskvy reported.

But Ponomaryov of For Human Rights warned that the consequences would be grave for many. "NGOs will become like Soviet dissidents: They can criticize the Kremlin only from home and not publicly," he said.

Human rights group Amnesty International, which had urged Putin to reject the bill, said in a statement that it regretted his decision and repeated its concern that the law gives the authorities excessive powers of scrutiny and discretion, which could be abused.

Russia's ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, acknowledged that he had concerns about the law but echoed Merkel in suggesting a watch-and-wait approach.

"Let's wait and see how the law works," he said. "I will report any human rights violations to the president."

Dear Diary

I realized that in the past couple of weeks I’ve been in this pseudo-melancholic slump. Much of it has been propelled by a horrific (that is, in my opinion, although I am sure it went better than I think) out-of-nowhere over-the-phone job interview, a traumatic (although in general lovely, but for me, a traumatic) baby shower, and too much free time on my hands. Ongoing obsessions with Bonnie Prince Billy, Cat Power and Johnny Cash (of the American edition) haven’t helped much. Add on the weirdly warm then freezing cold yet still gloomy weather and a killer headache which made me miss a Jack Rose show and that’s the formula for melancholy.

But then talking to my mother over the weekend, it hit me. It’s not really the baby shower, the job interview, too much free time, killer headaches or wacky weather. It’s the fact that every aspect of my life, from personal to professional (or unprofessional, really), is completely on hold for the next few months. And that’s what’s creating this brain fuck.

Typically, I am the kind of person who can make a decision quickly and I rarely think back and regret my decisions. There may be a moment when I think that my choice is not necessarily the wisest but I accept it and move on or deal with it. I don’t sit around, wallowing in indecisiveness, waiting for things to fall in their place. Not that I go out of my way to control the outcome of things but still, when presented with choice A or B, I can make up my mind fairly (or comparatively) quickly.

So essentially, today and for the next few months, I am that person who will be sitting around, twirling my proverbial thumbs, waiting in complete and utter uncertainty. Don’t get me wrong, I am fairly active, running around town looking for pocket organizers and trying to finish writing research report among other things. But this uncertainty and inability to do anything to resolve any aspect of the ambiguity is killing me. I guess there is some level of anxiety and hope that things will fall in the right (or desired) places but it all comes down to having to sit and wait around. I can’t make any decisions as there are no decisions to make nor can I speed up anything or anyone. I have no idea how people deal with this; I suppose that’s why self-medication (yes, of that kind) is so popular.

Well, back to wallowing in my melancholy.

I can't believe this!

Columbia Book Store
2 Ivy League Stationers
1 random card and calendar store

None carry the 3.5" by 5.5" Moleskine Weekly Planner. Although one of the Ivy League Stationers had the larger Moleskine Planner but it has columns with sections for each hour of the day. I don't have enough appointments in a day to buy it. Plus, it's big.

Now, the cherry topper - even the Moleskine website (moleskineus.com) lists the small weekly planner as out of stock! It's a conspiracy, I am meant to be lazy and disorganized for 2006.

An apology to my high school English teacher

Dear Mr. Cummins,

I am not sure if you read this blog, I think I may have included you in the mass email which accounced the debut of the blog. Which, of course, doesn't mean that you read it. But nevertheless, I want to apologize for all the spelling and grammar mistakes. Sorry for the misuse of commas (I love them), sorry for the really long sentences, fragments, incorrect syntax, and sentences that make no sense. Fortunately I can say that English is my third language, but that's no excuse. I promise I paid attention in your class; I am just careless when it comes to writing in this blog. And I still have troubles with the correct use of all the articles - I have no clue where "the" is more appropriate than "a" or perhaps an article is not necessary at all.

And I've lost my Strunk and White.

But I remember you said that it is important to write something every day. So here I am, writing something once a week or so. Plus, I haven't bought my 3.5" by 5.5" Moleskine weekly planner, perhaps once I own one, the postings will be more frequent.

Thanks for reading,
Betty McBoob

This is why I hate shopping

For the past few days, I've combed New York City (well, Manhattan, or lower Manhattan to be exact) for the 3.5" by 5.5" Moleskine 2006 weekly planner. Although generally I am not particularly attached to labels - to me, $30 Levi's jeans look just as good as $180 Seven jeans, the un-attainability of the Moleskine planner has made me want it more and more (I am only being a human!). Also, deep inside, I feel that if I purchase a 3.5" by 5.5" Moleskine weekly planner, my life will be uber-organized and, as a result, I will procrastinate less and do more meaningful and productive activities.

I went to several stationary and art supply stores in the Union Square area where I discovered a variety of different planners but no Moleskine ones. There were also a ton of other Moleskine products but no planners. Then I made it to not one, not two, but three Barnes & Noble stores and all had an abundance of planners but alas, no Moleskine planners. Of course, there were tons of Moleskine notebooks. Then I stopped by Pearl Paint on Canal Street where I found no planners of any kind but a display, which covered most of the wall, with different Moleskine products. As I looked at the display with disappointment, a nice sales clerk told me to go to the Container Store where one can buy the much coveted Moleskine planner. So I gathered the remainder of my strength, buckled my boots, tightened my scarf, took a deep breath and ventured out on the streets of Manhattan to the Container Store, which, unfortunately, is located near Union Square, about 15 blocks from Canal Street.

It was a lonely journey. Thanks to electricity, New York City streets are lit with overhead streetlamps and displays advertising trips to warm lands and post-holiday (not Christmas, of course) sales at Old Navy, yet January evenings in Manhattan are dark and dismal. It's cold and the holiday (not Christmas) cheer is gone, people bundle up, brace themselves against the bone chilling wind which makes 35 degrees feel like 25 degrees and scurry down the street. Since I've been walking for about two hours already, my feet were killing me and every step was permeated with pain. Hunger pangs were torturing me and I salivated every time I passed a pizza shop. My body was losing its energy fast. Yet I was determined to make it to the Container Store to buy my soon-to-be most prized possession.

Once I got to the Container Store, I felt a surge of excitement and energy as I stepped into its warm sales floor. A cheery greeter asked me if I needed help and I quickly described what I was looking for. She looked at me, turned around, and told me to walk to the back wall, turn left, walk to the end and take a right. As I followed her directions, I almost ran in excitement and anticipation. As I turned right, I saw a display of what looked like planners and notebooks and planner refill pages and other variety of products which would enable people to be organized. I was so happy. Well, that ended really quickly when I realized that the display was full of planners and notebooks and other random and useless stuff. But no Moleskine planners.

Of course, I can always order one online. I may, I plan to go to a couple stores near Columbia and then a stationary store near Columbus Circle. The $10 shipping charge and the 1-2 week wait may be worth it. In the meanwhile, I shall continue to procrastinate and write stupid blog entries.

Oh, and if anyone knows of any stores in Manhattan that sell Moleskine 3.5" by 5.5" 2006 weekly planners, please, please, please let me know. I promise I will credit and thank you when my first book gets published, I find cure for AIDS and solve world peace.

Updates

I am sure everyone is sitting, impatiently awaiting the blog’s update. The blog has been quiet lately, what is Inga up to? I bet she’s living it up, having little time for trivial things like her blog…

Well, in fact, I have been living it up. Mainly in the form of eating and sleeping. And watching useless television. In addition, I’ve:

* had a great New Years party. New Years parties are generally a tricky thing. Once in a while, I feel like having a gigantic bash, but most of the time a low key event with friends feels much more appropriate for me. I think age plays a factor in this as well, I (not so fondly) remember going to some New Year’s party in 2001 where I drank too much champagne which caused me to leave a trail of vomit from the Upper West Side all the way to Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The worst part of that New Year’s was waking up in someone’s apartment (luckily my friends were with me the whole time) still dressed in my winter coat with vomit all over it. I was so hung over that day (or really, still totally drunk) that I, very slowly, walked for about 30 city blocks to sober up so that I could get into the subway at Columbus Circle and make it to Sunset Park without throwing up. I think the rest of the day was spent in my bed, barely moving. Oh, I also omitted the part where I vomited in the subway. Yes, I was one of those annoying people who vomit in the subway and leave it all stinky. The following couple of New Years weren’t so memorable, although I vaguely remember showing up at some party in Park Slope, using the toilet (not to vomit this time) and promptly leaving. There was another New Year’s party where I inhaled too much smoke (yes, that kind) and felt so out of my mind that I sat on the balcony for an hour, trying to avoid talking to people and hoping that the car would come soon to pick me up. This time, my walk home (which lasted a good 30 minutes) was much more sobering. Fortunately for me and my aging friends, the past two New Years have been spent eating tons of food and drinking in the company of 10 or so good friends while counting down to midnight. Then the dancing would start. And all this would happen within walking distance of my apartment so I would be golden.

*watched the movie Munich. There is a small caveat to this story. When I first saw the poster for the movie, one of the letters was obscured by a column so when I looked it, I saw “unich” with a picture of a man with his head hanging low. Now, I realize that “unich” is spelled “eunuch” but at the first glance, I thought that Steven Spielberg has made a movie about eunuchs. Incidentally, the New Yorker had article about male baldness this week and according to it, castration has a 100% guarantee of prevention of baldness. Anyways, originally we tried to go see another movie but it was sold out so Munich was the only one that seemed most interesting. Well, let me tell you – don’t go see it. Unless you are willing to sit in a movie theater for 3 hours, it’s just not worth it. Even if you have great interest in Israel/Arab relations, don’t go see, you’ll be bored because there isn’t that much political analysis. There is tons of action in the movie (somebody gets blown up pretty much every 3 minutes) but it gets really boring after 2 hours of watching people getting blown up. Also, Spielberg tried to intertwine an emotional story about a sensitive family man with morals (blah blah) yet either the acting was poor or the story line was so boring that I did not care for the hero with morals nor did I identify or care for any of the characters in the movie. And (now, if you don’t want for the ending to be given away, don’t read the rest of this), the uber cheesy cheap shot at the very end was ridiculous. I rolled my eyes and laughed. The “hero” of the movie says something along the lines of, “if we keep killing them, they will find more evil people to replace the killed ones and where will it all end?” (or something along those lines) Cue crappy sappy music and pan camera to a background shot, focus on the World Trade Center Towers. Yes, that’s how crappy the movie was.

*read Freakonomics. So my friend told me earlier about Steven Levitt’s argument that the reason for low crime in 1990s was due to the abortion rates among poor disadvantaged women. Levitt argues that people who were more likely to commit crimes, those of low socio-economic ranks, lack of education, lack of supportive parent(s), etc, were effectively killed before they were born. Ok, an interesting argument. Yet, I wasn’t blown away. Or “dazzled” as Malcolm Gladwell’s blurb says on the cover. Once Levitt makes his statement, the rest of the chapter peters out. Or he switches to a more conventional topic. In general I think Levitt tends to make a statement that shows some correlation yet there is little convincing evidence for causality. He addresses this in a chapter by providing an example of snow and temperature. He says that there is correlation between cold weather and snow yet this correlation does not provide evidence that cold weather causes snow or that snow causes cold weather. Which is exactly my point since snow, a type of precipitation, is caused by the hydrologic cycle, while changes in weather, including Earth’s temperature, is caused by the heat from the sun (whew, finally, all those years spent around astronomers has come in handy). As a current researcher, I have (actual) authority to say that Levitt doesn’t self-criticize or acknowledge the weak points of his argument, something every good scientist would address. Without addressing holes in his arguments, in my eyes, Levitt’s book is not “dazzling.” Just “interesting.”

Happy New Year everyone!

I roll my eyes at you

So what bothers me a lot, and several people have heard about this already, are people who walk around with t-shirts, caps, coats, and other articles of clothing that have some sort of symbol of communism, more specifically Soviet communism, on them. I noticed in the past few days, there has been a re-emergence of caps and hats that have a red star sewn in the front. A few years back, there was a trend to wear Bolshevik-style military coats. And once in a while, you see some twit, wandering around in a USSR t-shirt. Or, CCCP, that’s a special t-shirt for those who really know.

One time, I think about two-three years back, I was at an art opening, walking around, feeling a little bored, not really fitting in with the rest of the people attending the opening. Thanks to my peripheral vision (yes, you’d think I am Wonder Woman), I spotted a kid in a green, ankle length military coat with a variety of Soviet-looking insignia on it. At that moment, I’ve had several drinks already so I felt ballsy enough to approach him and inquire why he wore that coat. I felt a little bad because the kid felt really uncomfortable and said to me in the most pitiful voice: “I don’t know, leave me alone.”

This brings me to my point. Most of these twits don’t know anything about communism. I doubt many of them would be able to compare and contrast the difference between socialists-who-became-communists-but-then-were-classified-as-socialists again, Marxism, Leninism (or, I guess, Marxist-Leninism, pending whom you ask), Stalinism, Glasnost, China and Cuba. Those who can speak at length in an intelligent manner most likely would not wear ‘stylish’ outfits with pre-sewn emblems.

Someone told me that kids wear that crap because they’ve been taught that communism is bad, thus wearing communist symbols would lead others to believe that these kids are ‘bad’ and ‘rebels’ against the establishment. Now, I may be totally wrong on this one, but I just don’t know that many 20-somethings today whose parents repeatedly warned them about the evils of communism. Most of them grew up in the 80s and they got to see the more fun (relatively speaking) parts of Soviet communism. I am sure pictures of smiling Gobachev made everyone feel fuzzy inside (ah, the fuzzy theme again).

Not to mention that a whole lot of people suffered under communism. And still do. Let’s not forget people being forcefully moved or deported, people dying in labor camps, people being overmedicated in a psychiatric hospital because they said the wrong thing. I don’t see anyone wearing swastikas in public, yet a CCCP t-shirt is OK? Why did all the Solidarity-type movements cropping up all over Eastern Europe? Why did the Wall get smashed into pieces? Communism may be fun to read but living in a communist state is another thing. And it shouldn’t be idolized the way it is by a bunch of ignorant twits. If they were sent to present-day China (and I mean China, not the fancy luxury hotels built just for foreigners in Beijing), I am sure all these twits will change their mind and move onto something else to wear.

Finally, it’s all finished

So the good news is that I am finally finished with the semester. The whole ordeal was painstaking. School of Social Work makes sure that everyone’s is on her last straw at the end of the semester by not giving time off during finals week (note that I wrote ‘her’ since the school is full of about 782 women and 13 men). So everyone was writing papers while going to classes and work. I’ve been writing frantically every day, writing so much that my 20 page paper became a 30 page paper and my 10 page paper became a 12 page paper. By the end of the week, my brain was completely fried, I would mumble something to people and no one understood anything I was saying. Not that anyone ever understands me but this time it was extra bad because even I wasn’t sure what I was saying any more.

In all this paper-writing delirium, I also had the weirdest and most intense dreams. Last Monday, in my dream, I was sitting in a New York City bus on the way home from the North 7^th stop on the L and all of the sudden, these two men broke out in a fight. They were really punching the crap out of each other and everyone around them was shrieking and scrambling to get away. And although I was scared and I kept telling myself that I really should get away as soon as possible, I didn’t budge. But the fear and panic felt real and I may have been screaming while dreaming. Not that there is anyone to verify my screaming but that’s a whole new post I am not going to dwell into. I am not sure why I dreamt about a fight although I did take a bus from my yoga class earlier that evening. So Freudian dream interpreters, fire away!

On top of this dream, later in the week, I had a weirder dream. I was at work in a conference room on the 8^th floor a building. Instead seeing the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I saw water that came up to the 8^th floor with snowcapped mountains in the background. At some point, rockets started flying around and planes started exploding into the mountains. At the same time, these cranes emerged from water and started swinging around for no reason. And a group of old people came out of an exit to the side to take a dip in what seemed to be freezing cold water. When they realized that the world was going bonkers around them, they all decided to swim back to the building. I am not feeling super descriptive today so instead, I doodled a lovely picture for you below. I just realized that I forgot to add this creature that popped out of nowhere and started climbing up the window, staring at me and my colleagues. Judging by the expression on its face, it seemed really angry and it kept jutting its sharp tongue over its spiky little teeth. I could even see its little suction cups that attached to the glass so that the little creature wouldn’t fall off. I woke up, feeling really confused.

And then, I had another weird dream where I was scared crapless as well, but I forgot it the minute I got into the shower.

But I am glad the semester is all over with. My plans for the break are to eat, sleep, and finally get back to all the people whom I haven’t seen in weeks. So if you’re one of them, call me! I’ll pick up this time, I promise.

This is what my mind comes up with when I am delirious 

Oh My God!

Someone shoot me! I've been listening to Cat Power for days now...

At least, I am not paying to see her live, now, that would be a disaster!

From the Washington Post

Katrina Victims Testify on Racism's Role

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; 8:06 PM

WASHINGTON -- Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina said Tuesday that racism contributed to the slow disaster response, at times likening themselves in emotional congressional testimony to victims of genocide and the Holocaust.

The comparison is inappropriate, according to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla.

"Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed," Miller told the survivors.

"They died from abject neglect," retorted community activist Leah Hodges. "We left body bags behind."

Angry evacuees described being trapped in temporary shelters where one New Orleans resident said she was "one sunrise from being consumed by maggots and flies." Another woman said military troops focused machine gun laser targets on her granddaughter's forehead. Others said their families were called racial epithets by police.

"No one is going to tell me it wasn't a race issue," said New Orleans evacuee Patricia Thompson, 53, who is now living in College Station, Texas. "Yes, it was an issue of race. Because of one thing: when the city had pretty much been evacuated, the people that were left there mostly was black."

Not all lawmakers seemed persuaded.

"I don't want to be offensive when you've gone though such incredible challenges," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. But referring to some of the victims' charges, like the gun pointed at the girl, Shays said: "I just don't frankly believe it."

"You believe what you want," Thompson said.

The hearing was held by a special House committee, chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., investigating the government's preparations and response to Katrina. It was requested by Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

"Racism is something we don't like to talk about, but we have to acknowledge it," McKinney said. "And the world saw the effects of American-style racism in the drama as it was outplayed by the Katrina survivors."

The five white and two black lawmakers who attended the hearing mostly sat quietly during two and a half hours of testimony. But tempers flared when evacuees were asked by Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., to not compare shelter conditions to a concentration camp.

"I'm going to call it what it is," said Hodges. "That is the only thing I could compare what we went through to."

Of five black evacuees who testified, only one said he believed the sluggish response was the product of bad government planning for poor residents, not racism.

I think I am in love

Well, maybe not in love per se, but it’s definitely a gigantic crush. Unfortunately, the guy is not from here so I don’t see him very often, which is a little sad. In fact, he won’t be back until spring; at least, that’s what he said, so it’s going to be a long and lonely winter. I may as well stock up on chocolate ice cream and DVDs now.

But he’s thoughtful and really nice. And he’s got a beard! He’s also a musician, and for those who don’t know me too well, I’ve always been a sucker for the musician/writer types. He’s brilliant - the one time I heard him play, I was a little mesmerized. Just a little - I was sidetracked by some guy who spilled his beer while chatting up a girl and I was watching him desperately soak up the spill and make it look cool. It didn’t work out; she turned around and cackled with her friends for the rest of the show.

Anyways, back to my crush. Truth be, he’s drinks a whole lot (it’s a little scary) and he’s married. So there isn’t much hope for me but everyone has secret crush. It just happens that mine is not on Brad Pitt or Jake Gyllenhaal (fortunately for me, my roommate has a magazine for gay men which features an article on Brokeback Mountain so I was able to refer to it to spell Gyllenhaal – whew!). My crush is on none other but the super-dreamy Jack Rose.

I am sure you’ll say: “well, Inga, how do you know that Jack Rose is thoughtful and really nice?” Well, let me tell you. I went to Tonic to see Jack (or as I refer to him – Jackie-poo) play. Now, Tonic listed him first on fliers and tickets. Other Music, a music store on West 4^th, didn’t even bother list other performers, they called the entire thing a Jack Rose show. Now, when a performer is listed first, that usually means that he will play last. Being cool, I showed up at 9pm, rather than at 8pm when the show started, expecting to wait several hours to see Jack Rose play. Well, unfortunately for me, Jack Rose played first and I missed the entire performance. And to make things worst, Tonic wouldn’t refund the $15 tickets even though Ticket Web, which also sells tickets for shows at Tonic, refunded tickets to its customers because Josephine Foster, who also scheduled to play that evening, cancelled.

But, thanks to the addictive nature of nicotine and current anti-smoking laws in New York City, after his performance, Jack Rose bolted outside for a smoke. During this time, I took the opportunity to whine (heck, I am a pro at it, why not?) about missing him play. I even pointed out that I had his show on my calendar for weeks. Jack was really nice, he apologized and ran back into Tonic. After a little while, he came out with a tote bag and gave me a t-shirt. Ok, so I suppose a t-shirt is not really the same as getting to see him play but I don’t care, he didn't have to give me one. So, Jackie-poo, I luv you!

Killer chipmunks and squirrels

I couldn't resist... and I would second the existence of killer squirrels. I've seen several squirrels attack humans on my college compus a few years ago. And these were civilized american squirrels.

Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog'

Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report. Passers-by were reportedly too late to stop the attack by the black squirrels in a village in the far east, which reportedly lasted about a minute. They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh.

A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food sources, although scientists are sceptical. The attack was reported in parkland in the centre of Lazo, a village in the Maritime Territory, and was witnessed by three local people. A "big" stray dog was nosing about the trees and barking at squirrels hiding in branches overhead when a number of them suddenly descended and attacked, reports say.

"They literally gutted the dog," local journalist Anastasia Trubitsina told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. "When they saw the men, they scattered in different directions, taking pieces of their kill away with them."

Mikhail Tiyunov, a scientist in the region, said it was the first he had ever heard of such an attack. While squirrels without sources of protein might attack birds' nests, he said, the idea of them chewing at a dog to death was "absurd". "If it really happened, things must be pretty bad in our forests," he added.

Komosmolskaya Pravda notes that in a previous incident this autumn chipmunks terrorised cats in a part of the territory. A Lazo man who called himself only Mikhalich said there had been "no pine cones at all" in the local forests this year. "The little beasts are agitated because they have nothing to eat," he said.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4489792.stm

And I thought I whine a lot

So thanks to my friend, who is sorely missed, I am posting a story from the New York Times, which accurately describes the trials and tribulations of using the G train. And I gotta meet this Emanuele Zanet, I think there is a talk in order.

December 6, 2005
No Respect (and Soon, a Crew of One)
By SEWELL CHAN

It is the only major subway line in New York that does not enter Manhattan. Its route is short: 16 stations at peak hours. Its trains, 4 cars instead of the usual 8 or 10, seem oddly truncated. Even the color of its route symbol, a sickly lime green, suggests unease.

It's the G line, which rumbles between Queens and Brooklyn, and has never been much loved by subway riders. It does not have the multiethnic charm of the No. 7, the iPod-hipster bustle of the L, the quaint charm of the 42nd Street shuttle or the romance of the A. It has not been immortalized in song.

And now, perhaps, the final indignity: starting this month, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to remove all conductors from the line. Since 1998, the line has been conductorless on weekends - the first line, other than shuttles, to be run under a program known as one-person train operation. (On a one-person train, there is only an operator at the front.)

The authority says that conductorless trains save money and are widely used in other cities, but some riders view the impending change as only the latest slight for a line that too often seems forlorn and neglected. No other line seems to have riders so aggrieved, and their criticism so vituperative.

"Just put lights on the tracks and we can walk - it'll be faster," said Jonathan Lovett, 46, a letter carrier whose house is a few steps from the Clinton-Washington station in Brooklyn. His advice to the G-line neophyte: "Bring an extra battery for your MP3 player."

But the line does provide a vital, if erratic, link between the city's two most populous boroughs, and G detractors may be surprised to know that weekday ridership has risen 10 percent since 2000. Much of that has resulted from residential growth in neighborhoods like Long Island City, Queens, and Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Fort Greene, in Brooklyn.

Mr. Lovett was worried that the removal of conductors might complicate a practice that some riders call the G-line sprint. If they hear the train coming and find themselves at one end of the platform, they will make a mad dash to the short train. "Often, the conductor will keep the doors open if he sees you running for the train," Mr. Lovett said. "I don't know if the motorman will do that - or if he can even see you running, since he's in the front of the train."

From its southern terminus, at Smith-Ninth Streets near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, the line meanders north, east and then north again. At peak hours and midday on weekdays, it serves 16 stations and ends at Court Square in Long Island City. In evenings, at nights and on weekends, it serves 29 stations and ends at 71st Street-Continental Avenue in Forest Hills.
But even that irregular plan is not often followed. Service has been particularly erratic this year, because of an array of construction projects, including a $47.9 million effort to rehabilitate structures, repair leaks and replace incandescent lights with fluorescent ones along five miles of the line.

For 42 weekends this year, the train is ending at Court Square because of various subway construction projects. For 14 weekends this year and late nights for half of the year, the line is operating in two segments, one from Hoyt-Schermerhorn to Bedford-Nostrand in Brooklyn and the other from Bedford-Nostrand to Queens. And for 10 weeks, the G line is running express in Queens on weeknights.

The constant service changes have created confusion. "Even on a good day, it's chaotic on the G train," said Brenda L. Carpio, 28, a telephone operator who leaves her home in Red Hook, Brooklyn, at 5:30 a.m. to reach her job at a car service company in Sunnyside, Queens, by 7. "On weekdays, it can be pretty reliable, but on the weekends, not at all."

The G line's performance was defended by Emanuele Zanet, the G line superintendent at New York City Transit, the transportation authority subsidiary that operates the subways. "It operates quite efficiently, on time and on schedule," he said.

Statistics show a mixed picture. From 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., en route schedule adherence - a measure of nighttime service reliability - improved significantly, to 80.6 percent in the third quarter of this year from 61.3 percent in the same period last year.

But from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., when most trips are taken, the wait assessment - the percentage of times that the wait between trains falls within acceptable limits - dropped slightly, to 91.6 percent from 85.9 percent. Both of the G indicators are comparable to those of most of the other 25 subway lines.

Mr. Zanet, who has overseen the line since February, attributed the slippage to signal and switch malfunctions, police actions, stops to wait for help to arrive for sick customers and other disruptions.

The G line has been renamed and reconfigured several times since it was born as part of the Independent Subway System in 1933, but probably the biggest change came in 2001, when the 63rd Street tunnel was completed. The F was rerouted through the tunnel, which would have left the E as the only line leading into Manhattan under 53rd Street. To relieve crowding on the E and F, the V was created to run from Forest Hills to the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Because there were only so many trains that could use the station stops in Queens, New York City Transit proposed permanently shortening the G, so that its last stop would always be Court Square. Otherwise, officials said, the G, R and V lines would get backed up in Queens.
An uproar ensued, and the agency agreed to keep running the G line to Forest Hills - but only in evenings, at nights and on weekends. The change never sat well with riders. "The V wasn't really necessary," said Mildred Powell, 45, a housekeeper who used to take the G directly to her job at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens. Now she must use three lines a day, instead of two.
Many riders today say the subway map is misleading because it depicts the G line from Court Square to Forest Hills as a dotted line - a tantalizing representation of what the line used to be and now so rarely is.

Kenneth K. Fisher, who represented most Brooklyn neighborhoods along the line as a City Council member from 1991 to 2001, said the G has long lacked powerful supporters. "It served a largely poor and working-class constituency," he said, "and it traveled through some neighborhoods that didn't have a lot of residents or were perceived as high-crime, which kept ridership down."

That may be changing. Neighborhoods around the G line have been bustling with luxury high rises, art studios and new restaurants. Greenpoint has become a hub for independent filmmakers, loft condos are proliferating in Fort Greene and residential towers are going up in Long Island City.

Ridership has climbed. The G line now delivers an average of 38,869 each weekday, up from 35,227 in 2000, not counting stations south of Fulton Street that are shared with the A, C or F lines. That means more riders are learning the G-line sprint.

"I don't like to see people running after the trains," said John M. Kinyk, a train operator on the G. "It's not safe. The people ask, 'Where's the rest of the train?' "

Oh the horror!

I was sitting in a hole-in-a-wall diner today, eating my two eggs over easy with sausage and I overheard people behind me talking about the Times article on bedbugs. They’re not just taking over our beds - they’re taking over our minds! People are eating, sleeping, dreaming, thinking, and scratching bedbugs!

Not a slightest bit of fuzz

Lately something really weird has been going on. It left me confused, perplexed, and I have no rational explanation for any of it. Perhaps the Apocalypse in nearing or something has been slipped into the New York City’s water.

For some reason, wherever I go, someone calls me “honey” or “sweetie.” And I am not talking about someone who has meaning in my life, because then I just feel all fuzzy inside; I mean people at the deli, the cashier at Duane Reade, random person asking me for directions to Fordham. And there are definitely no fuzzy feelings on my part. I cannot explain this at all because usually I look like crap and most of the time, I am pissed off at some moron who cannot get out of the way quickly enough. Lately, thanks to the never ending papers that are all due in the next two weeks, I look double crappy and triple exhausted. Yet the other day, a guy behind the counter at a deli gave me a cup of steaming hot peppermint tea and said: “here you go, sweetie.” I am sure I rolled my eyes and then when I turned toward to cashier, she said: “would you like a bag for you tea, honey?” I don’t know, maybe the guy behind the counter and the cashier lady had some lovin’ the night before but then a few weeks ago, a cashier at Duane Reade called me “sweetie” when I thanked her. Since the deli and the Duane Reade are fairly far apart from each other, I doubt there was any sort of a connection between all three.

On top of this, all of the sudden, once or twice a day someone asks me for directions. And I checked, there isn’t a sign anywhere on my body that encourages people to ask me for directions. I remember a few years back, someone was telling me that I don’t look very approachable and that I need to smile more. I told that person that I am fine with not being approachable. So if I am not that approachable and I am not all smiles, why are all these people asking me for directions?

I am sure this makes sense to people in the South or Midwest or something but in New York, it just doesn’t make sense.

Enough of procrastination. I wish papers wrote themselves.

Is that little dot on my sheets moving?

Due to a variety of rather pleasant circumstances, for the first time in several years, I read the Sunday’s Times while sipping (or trying to sip) coffee while lying in bed. To my horror, one of the front page stories, which then continued onto several other pages deeper into the A section, I read a story on bedbugs, which, apparently, are taking over New York. Now, we all know that the front page stories are fluff stories accompanied by a dramatic picture of a malnourished child or a dying “peace keeper” in the Middle East - sort of like fluff stories you get on the Fox 5 Channel. But the reason why I was so horrified is that I’ve always had a fear of bedbugs and they made it to the front page of the New York Times!

It all started when a few years back my friend announced that her roommate had bedbugs. After telling me about her roommate’s repeated attempts to get rid of them, I was traumatized (I am sure) for life. That evening I ran home, tore off my sheets and, while shaking in fear of what I may find, I inspected every crevice of my mattress. Fortunately, there weren’t any visible creepy crawlers. Nevertheless, that night was followed by my tossing and turning and scratching while imagining tiny little buggers crawling all around my bed. Later on, say a year or so, my roommate started to complain about bites on her arms and chest which, to my paranoid and untrained eye, looked pretty much like bedbug bites. Then again, it was the year when construction started in our backyard and there were puddles of rain everywhere which would have easily lead to an infestation of mosquitoes. Yes, swarms of mosquitoes in Brooklyn. Haven’t you heard of the West Nile virus on the Fox 5 Channel?

The other thing is that in my previous life, I traveled in the US and to several countries and I managed to stay in a variety of fancy and not-so-fancy hotels. According to the bedbug article, that’s where a lot of people have gotten their bedbugs. So, according to it, I’ve managed to place myself in several high-risk situations – my friend’s bedbug infested apartment and somewhat seedy hotels. Not that the hotel in Mongolia was seedy, but judging by the amount of black hair left by the previous occupant of my bed, I doubt the sheets were changed carefully or regularly (hmm, wait, should I have someone inspect my head for lice?).

Despite some comforting words and assurances that this is probably a ploy set up by some bedbug fumigation company which will soon reveal a brand new bedbug killing machine, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ll probably toss and turn all night tonight while scratching every part of my body. I should just stop reading the Times; really, it’s day old news anyways.

Loins on fire

I would imagine an average reading is thinking that I’ve been spending a lot of time writing about the New York City subway lines. The problem is that I take the subway almost every day of the week (that is if the L is working on the weekends, but that’s a whole new post) so I can’t help but spend a lot of time thinking about it. Plus, since I’ve fallen into this slump of not doing any school-related work any more, there is not much to do in the subway but stand/sit, listen to my iPod and ponder.

Anyways, the guest of honor for today’s post is an average man who takes the subway in New York City. It’s your typical, average, non-descript man who sits on a really crowded subway seat, smushed between other riders, perhaps wishing he was still in bed or somewhere completely different. So no big deal, right? Well, the thing is that about 90% of the time, this typical man would sit with his legs spread so far apart that he takes up about 2 seats therefore causing further smushing of seated passengers around him.

When I see such a man, the only thing that crosses my mind is that he must have enormously gigantic genitalia. I mean, if you can’t keep your legs closer together, there must something special going on in your pants. Alternatively, this man is on fire and the spreading of his thighs will cool his loins.

Otherwise, I just don’t have any other rational explanation for lack of any awareness of his inconsiderate actions that lead to discomfort (and, on my part, bewildered wonder) of anyone around him.

It was NYC marathon today. Guess who won the women's race? A Latvian, of course!!! Wooohooo! 

(Smelly) Ode to Greenpoint

I’ve been reading everywhere that sometime last week parts of New York, mainly Lower East Side and apparently some parts of Brooklyn such as Williamsburg and Greenpoint, smelled like maple leaf syrup. Um, wait, I think I mean to say maple syrup. It doesn’t matter; the point is that it smelled sweet and syrupy. Which is quite unusual for New York because usually it smells like garbage or bus exhaust. Sometimes you get a whiff of someone’s body odor but usually happens when you standing in a crowded subway car.

Well, whoever wrote that it smelled sweet and syrupy in Greenpoint which is where I live, must have gone bananas.

Greenpoint has its great spots, there are parts of the neighborhood that still have old brick mansions and some parts of the river have amazing old factories with spiraling stairs that lead right to the water so that a ship can unload. Major streets are named after families who were big in merchandise and trade. Also, some of the architecture in Greenpoint is really beautiful. My friend who is Irish told me that her aunt in her childhood days would go to Greenpoint to see the shops and go to the movies. Apparently, Manhattan Avenue used to be a bustling shopping district with movies theaters and there was a trolly that ran up and down the street. To this day, when you walk down Manhattan Avenue, you can still see intricate decorations carved into buildings and there are remnants of trolly tracks at the very end of the avenue.

There are also remnants of the McCarren pool which was built during the Depression and apparently had floodlights that illuminated the whole pool at night. Also, judging by the size of the ruins, it must have been one gigantic pool.

I don’t live in the historic part of Greenpoint. I live in the shabbily built buildings that barely comply with the NYC construction code. All the buildings are uniform and none are decorated in an interesting way. That is if you find an American flag a boring decoration. It did not smell like syrup where I live. In fact, there is a sewage processing plant near by which is located right next to a garbage processing plant. And when the wind blows in the right direction, my neighborhood smells like a combination of shit and garbage. There was definitely no syrupy smell.