disrupted internet service

The earthquake in Taiwan a few days ago disrupted undersea cables, so internet service has been spotty. I can't seem to access my Cornell webmail account, but this blog and facebook works. Go figure. All my email addresses are in webmail though, and I kinda use it as an address/diary, so it'll be nice to have that back. Still, at least my house isn't in rubbles or flooded with brown, dirty water, so I'm thankful enough.

Being home is always difficult sometimes, but there are also fun parts. A lot of my friends are having babies (eepp!) so it's fun to be carrying them (until they cry and need to be changed or fed), and it's always nice to catch up with old friends and find out how they've been doing.

I know that my current life isn't here though . . . :) Missing my T-ride house pals, but not the drama. Need to get back to staring at the screen with my dissertation files opened . . .

But also enjoying the slow pace, the TV, the hanging out, and of course the food . . .


Anyways. :) Life can be complicated, but good.

Piled Higher and Deeper . . .

This is so true, it's not even funny.

not so new beginnings?

I'm not sure I'm completely convinced that our calendars are the best ways to mark the passage of time. January 1 seems to be a pretty arbitrary date, and there's no real reason why it should mark a "new" year, or a new beginning.

And anyway, when you're stuck in the American academic calendar, seasons and cycles are really quite different from the rest of the sane world . . .

But I suppose it prompts us to stop for a moment and take stock of what we're doing and what we hope to do. I'm still stuck in grad school, so it always seems like all I want is to move onward with the dissertation . . . onward to the point of completion. :)

There has to be life beyond grad school, there simply has to be!

not much to blog about

Conference was last week, and I'm still recovering from having to sit in an auditorium for day-long sessions, 4 days in a row. Bleh!! Good networking opportunity, I suppose.

Tummy feeling funny these past few days. A bit of the runs and a little nausea, and now I'm a little afraid to eat so drinking mom's soup for dinner.

Friend gave birth, and needs some babysitting help with her first child (almost 3 years old), so I think I'm going to take Ethan swimming tonight because his dad has to be in church this evening for an event. I get along quite well with Ethan, so I don't think it'll be too much trouble. :) He keeps me on my toes.

Didn't bring my camera back with me so no pictures. Maybe I'll borrow my mom's camera.

home!

Back in Malaysia! Good flight, but now I have a crick in my neck, and am very, very tired. Good to be home though.

Esp since sh*t has apparently hit the fan AGAIN in T-house. I'm glad I'm not there, but I hope my friends are surviving.

Michael Moore's letter

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006
Cut and Run, the Only Brave Thing to Do ...a letter from
Michael Moore

Friends,

Monday marked the day that we had been in Iraq longer than we were in
all of World War II.

That's right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini,
and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the
world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to
downtown Baghdad.

And we haven't even done THAT. After 1,347 days, in the same
time it took us to took us to sweep across North Africa, storm the
beaches of Italy, conquer the South Pacific, and liberate all of Western
Europe, we cannot, after over 3 and 1/2 years, even take over a single
highway and protect ourselves from a homemade device of two tin cans
placed in a pothole. No wonder the cab fare from the airport into Baghdad
is now running around $35,000 for the 25-minute ride. And that doesn't
even include a friggin' helmet.

Is this utter failure the fault of our troops? Hardly. That's because
no amount of troops or choppers or democracy shot out of the barrel of
a gun is ever going to "win" the war in Iraq. It is a lost war, lost
because it never had a right to be won, lost because it was started by
men who have never been to war, men who hide behind others sent to
fight and die.

Let's listen to what the Iraqi people are saying, according to a
recent poll conducted by the University of Maryland:

** 71% of all Iraqis now want the U.S. out of Iraq.

** 61% of all Iraqis SUPPORT insurgent attacks on U.S. troops.

Yes, the vast majority of Iraqi citizens believe that our soldiers
should be killed and maimed! So what the hell are we still doing
there? Talk about not getting the hint.

There are many ways to liberate a country. Usually the residents of
that country rise up and liberate themselves. That's how we did
it. You can also do it through nonviolent, mass civil disobedience.
That's how India did it. You can get the world to boycott a regime
until they are so ostracized they capitulate. That's how South Africa did
it. Or you can just wait them out and, sooner or later, the king's
legions simply leave (sometimes just because they're too cold). That's how
Canada did it.

The one way that DOESN'T work is to invade a country and tell the
people, "We are here to liberate you!" -- when they have done NOTHING
to liberate themselves. Where were all the suicide bombers when
Saddam was oppressing them? Where were the insurgents planting bombs
along the roadside as the evildoer Saddam's convoy passed them by? I
guess ol' Saddam was a cruel despot -- but not cruel enough for
thousands to risk their necks. "Oh no, Mike, they couldn't do that! Saddam
would have had them killed!" Really? You don't think King George had
any of the colonial insurgents killed? You don't think Patrick Henry
or Tom Paine were afraid? That didn't stop them. When tens of thousands
aren't willing to shed their own blood to remove a dictator, that
should be the first clue that they aren't going to be willing
participants when you decide you're going to do the liberating
for them.

A country can HELP another people overthrow a tyrant (that's what the
French did for us in our revolution), but after you help them, you
leave. Immediately. The French didn't stay and tell us how to
set up our government. They didn't say, "we're not leaving because we
want your natural resources." They left us to our own devices and it
took us six years before we had an election. And then we had a
bloody civil war. That's what happens, and history is full of these
examples. The French didn't say, "Oh, we better stay in America, otherwise
they're going to kill each other over that slavery issue!"

The only way a war of liberation has a chance of succeeding is if the
oppressed people being liberated have their own citizens behind
them-- and a group of Washingtons, Jeffersons, Franklins, Gandhis and
Mandellas leading them. Where are these beacons of liberty in Iraq?

This is a joke and it's been a joke since the beginning. Yes, the
joke's been on us, but with 655,000 Iraqis now dead as a result
of our invasion (source: Johns Hopkins University), I guess the cruel
joke is on them. At least they've been liberated, permanently.

So I don't want to hear another word about sending more troops (wake
up, America, John McCain is bonkers), or "redeploying" them, or
waiting four months to begin the "phase-out." There is only one
solution and it is this: Leave. Now. Start tonight. Get out of
there as fast as we can. As much as people of good heart and conscience
don't want to believe this, as much as it kills us to accept
defeat, there is nothing we can do to undo the damage we have done. What's
happened has happened. If you were to drive drunk down the road
and you killed a child, there would be nothing you could do to
bring that child back to life. If you invade and destroy a country,
plunging it into a civil war, there isn't much you can do `til the smoke
settles and blood is mopped up. Then maybe you can atone for the
atrocity you have committed and help the living come back to a better life.

The Soviet Union got out of Afghanistan in 36 weeks. They did so and
suffered hardly any losses as they left. They realized the mistake
they had made and removed their troops. A civil war ensued. The bad
guys won. Later, we overthrew the bad guys and everybody lived happily
ever after. See! It all works out in the end!

The responsibility to end this war now falls upon the Democrats.
Congress controls the purse strings and the Constitution says only
Congress can declare war. Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi now hold the power
to put an end to this madness. Failure to do so will bring the wrath
of the voters. We aren't kidding around, Democrats, and if you don't
believe us, just go ahead and continue this war another month. We will
fight you harder than we did the Republicans. The opening page of my
website has a photo of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, each made up by a
collage of photos of the American soldiers who have died in Bush's
War. But it is now about to become the Bush/Democratic Party War
unless swift action is taken.

This is what we demand:

1. Bring the troops home now. Not six months from now. NOW. Quit
looking for a way to win. We can't win. We've lost. Sometimes you
lose. This is one of those times. Be brave and admit it.

2. Apologize to our soldiers and make amends. Tell them we are sorry
they were used to fight a war that had NOTHING to do with our national
security. We must commit to taking care of them so that they suffer as
little as possible. The mentally and physically maimed must get the
best care and significant financial compensation. The families of the
deceased deserve the biggest apology and they must be taken care of
for the rest of their lives.

3. We must atone for the atrocity we have perpetuated on the people of
Iraq. There are few evils worse than waging a war based on a lie,
invading another country because you want what they have buried under
the ground. Now many more will die. Their blood is on our hands,
regardless for whom we voted. If you pay taxes, you have contributed
to the three billion dollars a week now being spent to drive Iraq into
the hellhole it's become. When the civil war is over, we will have to
help rebuild Iraq. We can receive no redemption until we have atoned.

In closing, there is one final thing I know. We Americans are better
than what has been done in our name. A majority of us were upset and
angry after 9/11 and we lost our minds. We didn't think straight and
we never looked at a map. Because we are kept stupid through our
pathetic education system and our lazy media, we knew nothing of
history. We didn't know that WE were the ones funding and arming
Saddam for many years, including those when he massacred the
Kurds. He was our guy. We didn't know what a Sunni or a Shiite was, never even
heard the words. Eighty percent of our young adults (according to
National Geographic) were not able to find Iraq on the map. Our
leaders played off our stupidity, manipulated us with lies, and scared
us to death.

But at our core we are a good people. We may be slow learners, but
that "Mission Accomplished" banner struck us as odd, and soon we began
to ask some questions. Then we began to get smart. By this past
November 7th, we got mad and tried to right our wrongs. The majority
now know the truth. The majority now feel a deep sadness and guilt and
a hope that somehow we can make make it all right again.

Unfortunately, we can't. So we will accept the consequences of our
actions and do our best to be there should the Iraqi people ever dare
to seek our help in the future. We ask for their forgiveness.

We demand the Democrats listen to us and get out of Iraq now.

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com