Exaltation where exlatation is do

I'd like to say, I'm a huge admirer of the European Union and the entire concept of an international bloc of culturally and geographically linked nation-states working together in a world too often dominated by poorly run superpowers (basically the United States, but I do believe more shall join the ranks soon enough i.e. China and India). Furthermore, they're way ahead of all others on establishing legislation is ensure sustainability for themselves. For example, the bloc is on top of encouraging the development of alternative energy sources, for which they have set themselves benchmark goals to achieve implementing. To this end they've held true, with the proposal to pass legislation making sure that bio-fuels that are imported to the EU are created in an ecologically beneficial fashion only. This is in advance of even minimal exploration of this by the American government or the new rising economic players. Seeing a potentially helpful technology in their fight against climate change; they've taken steps to see that it isn't misused or misrepresented as it all too often is by proponents of bio-fuels like BP or farming groups, that are looking for profits over results. This is a laudable objective of governments to take. Even though it still has a way to go, just the mere fact that is considered in the open discourse of the union is fantastically beyond most everywhere else. I truly hope that the laws come to be enforced to their proper ends.
Another awesome feature that has been applied in the EU that I think could be learned from is the Schengen Agreement. This is basically a treaty that allows for citizens of member nations to travel about all member nations more easily, without the need for border checking (though this isn't one hundred percent true, but way more so than other places). This eased the restrictions of trade and economic co-operation of the members, as well as surely reducing the cost of having to maintain border stations. The opposite trend is happening in the United States however, with the move towards requiring passports for even Canadian border stops for American and Canadian citizens. Personally, being born and raised extremely close to the US-Canada border, this is a hassle that many citizens that don't need to cross the border will just not see as necessary, only hurting the mutually beneficial trade of the countries. Not to say many won't get passports that did not own them, but there will be a sizable amount that consider the extra cost a luxury they aren't lining up to spend their money and time on. In addition, this rule as been delay many times, perhaps due to the governments sluggish pace to ready themselves to the conversion or fears of the economic repercussions. Maybe it is the Bush administration's rhetoric to secure the nation that drives this; seeing that they certainly aren't holding to this very well with other ideas (namely Iraq). Yet this can't be the best answer, an alternative plan might be found in strengthening relations with the Canadian government on this issue. Naturally, if the Canadians have a secure border and the US does as well, then it will be a homogeneous unit that shall not necessitate increasingly restrictive policies for traveling between the two. Being the United States' largest trade partner, damaging commercial links with Canada seems generally unhelpful for the declining economy in America. What is most paradoxical to me is the way both presidents of recent times have so strongly supported free trade agreements, yet this seems in staunch opposition to such ideals. I'm no fan of free trade treaties, but this just doesn't add up in my mind.

Don't end up like Ffirth

Some people might have seen the link on wikipedia to a fella named Stubbins Ffirth. I think his story is a good illustration of many people's fears. Now, this guy thought it was the shit at medical science, moreover he seemed to have a taste for theatrics. To set his stage, this was a time, late 18th and early 19th centuries, when they were none too sure how yellow fever worked in his day, but they sure as hell knew it was killing a bunch of folks. Anyhow, our man Ffirth was only a trainee doctor, but being a hot shot decided he'd test his theory that yellow fever was non-contagious on himself. To this end, Firth did a great many things to himself involving the vomit of diseased patients, as well as their urine, blood and saliva. He went so far as to eat the vomit to show that the disease wasn't able to spread from person to person. Although certianly putting on a flamboyant spectacle for his contemporaries, he was wrong. As a Cuban would prove later, mosquitoes were the cause of the disease's rapid spread in the summer months. So, as funny as it may seem to us, he spent part of his short life (a mere 36 years) eating the vomit of the diseased to prove a something that in the end was false. Luckily the mosquito link wasn't discovered for decades after his death, otherwise that's be really embarrassing.
However, my point is that, even if you or I don't go so far as to eat the bodily fluids of others, not to mention the sick, we still could devote our lives to something that is rather meaningless in the end despite its appearance otherwise in the present. It's a very scary fact to face up to for me at times, but I suppose there is little less anyone can do but try. And Ffirth did plenty of that, we all must admit.

seriously people...

"This chart depicts the public acceptance of evolution theory in 34 countries in 2005. Adults were asked to respond to the statement: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." The percentage of respondents who believed this to be true is marked in blue; those who believed it to be false, in red; and those who were not sure, in yellow.

A study of several such surveys taken since 1985 has found that the United States ranks next to last in acceptance of evolution theory among nations polled. Researchers point out that the number of Americans who are uncertain about the theory's validity has increased over the past 20 years."

the world’s nicest social-housing complex?

deputydog has a nice post on alt-erlaa, a public housing complex in vienna. extra premium. i don't have any clever insights to add, just a renewed hope for the world...

There are some lucky bastards yet!

Sometimes there is so much bad news aloof that one is amazed to see a fella get a break of luck. Like Voltaire wrote in Candide, everyone thinks they've got the worst lot in life. I feel that I've escaped the worst, and I wish I could say everyone would be able to feel like that, but it simply isn't true. Some people get breaks, others get something horrible. To contrast, one man fell 500 feet to the ground and survived. Unfortunately his brother did not make it, falling as the same time, but I mean his family suffered only half the losses it rightfully could've. Yet I'm also going to recommend a book I'm still in the process of reading, I'm over half way though. It's gripping enough that I believe I should tell people about it as soon as I can. The book is entitled What Is the What and it covers the fictionalized, but reality-based life of a Sudanese refugee. The author, Dave Eggers, using the outline of a man named Valentino Achak Deng's life to create a story to tell of the hardships and complexities of being a child unlucky enough to have been born in a time and place of warfare. It really makes anyone that has half a heart think about how much they've gotten just have birth. Even though events in this book are fictional is nature, they are things that very well could have happened to people, and many times did, just not in the exact order or fashion that Eggers put in. It is like a Candide for children of the Sudan, and compelling and encompassing tale that explains their point of view.

...

another reason to hate ethanol

My Christmas Wish

Perhaps it is the amount of coffee I've consumed this Christmas Eve. Maybe the fact that I'm in my hometown typing this from what was formerly my bedroom but now an office for my family members remaining here. Could even be the way I'm listening to my last.fm radio from here and its playing old songs from high school until now. Anyone of them, I am still reflecting on my years as a high school student, and how I would love to be able to redo it with the little knowledge I have gained in my 2 years since graduation. The amount of political understanding I have gained, musical horizons expanded, and literature covered would make the experience of high school so much more exploitable for meaning. To be capable of sharing this with my desolately boring hometown is beyond my mind's perception.
This was sparked as well by the random article reading on wikipedia, leading to my devouring information on the events of May 68 in France. For a small town boy to comprehend that mere students could spark a revolutionary fervor in the world of French youth and workers alike, is like asking an ante bellum slave owner to accept human rights. Seems like an impossibly unbelievable happening, but it is very true. Despite May 68's eventual political defeat, with the French government winning more support in the elections established as a result of the protests, they're something that culturally Americans could never do. At least not with the way we're socialized today. The students stood up and for one another, they wanted a fairer education system for themselves and future French students. This snowballed into students (college and high school both), teachers, their supporters, and importantly workers demanding an improvement of social standards in France. The workers took factories, without the aid or organization of their unions, working in a unified fashion, like a single union formed from sheer will. Perhaps foolishly they refused the unions negotiated offers for increases of minimum wages and indeed all wages, but they stood on their principles, which were radical. Meetings of tens of thousands of students, speaking about overthrowing their government. Marches with hundreds of thousands demanding the removal of De Gaulle from power ("Adieu, de Gaulle!"), chanted through the streets of Paris. They might not have won electoral victory, they might still not run their own factories, but the French have something Americans can only dream of. The knowledge that they have, and could maybe someday again, unify in solidarity, across student-teacher, student-worker, and intellectual-worker divides to help each other attempt something truly noble.
France is no Soviet Union, Nazi Russia, or Fascist Italy. It was and is, a leading industrialized western nation, yet they did what American students would deem unimaginable. Americans need to lose their air of superiority among the world's nations, and accept that others have done things greater than we have mustered the will to do for ourselves. Europeans are knocking down borders, providing health care for its citizens, and possess far more democratic institutions. All the while, the United States "elects" leaders that continually show disregard for the world's people, in respect to climate change, human rights and starting wars that its unable to justify or maintain in a sensible fashion (if war can ever be done sensibly).
How fun would it be to go to class and recommend an article that might make a radical out of your classmate? Or to quiz one's 10th grade civics teacher of the reasons for Europeans having more democratic elections? Shake a few things up, even if it doesn't result in the a revolution, you did something worthy of doing. As the French graffiti artists of that spring month in 1968 put it, "Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible" (Be realistic, ask for the impossible).