Far East Cynic

We got back last night with very few difficulties-even while passing through the zoo that is Ohare Airport on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The cat survived-but was most decidedly pissed off with us. He took it out on us by deciding that 5am would be a good time to start meowing-loudly. Throwing him off the bed only seemed to heighten his fervor to wake up us up.

Thus I am awake and writing this post. S.O. is back asleep. It is just as well for today is going to suck at work-lots to get dug out from and I have not checked my work e-mail in over 9 days. Plus I have to give a presentation tomorrow. Its done-but I actually need to review sometime during the busy day today.

I really did not pay so much attention the news while we were over there-save from occasionally watching CNN and the German news broadcasts. Col Gundel would be proud-it appears I actually learned something in his classes. because I understood them and the newspapers well enough. Germans did not seem to understand me th0ugh-seems my accent on the words is too profoundly American.

I did note with interest the Swiss referendum on minarets-good for them. One of the most jarring things to me while walking on the shopping streets in Belgium was the number of women wearing hijabs ( scarves). That had increased a lot from the last time I was in Brussels-and I found it troubling.

Not because I one of those zenophobes who laments the loss of old “Europe”-the immigration that occurred was a concious choice by those countries and a lot of the labor these immigrants do is not being done by Europeans ( which is a whole another post). Rather the issue I take with the hijab is that it is such an “in your face” refusal by European Muslims to assimilate and blend into the country’s culture. By the end of our trip, I wanted to reach out and rip the damn scarves off these women.  If the women were not wearing the damn things, they would have most probably been just another slightly overweight woman walking on Brussels streets. The Muslim men-well they don’t wear anything that distinguishes them-they just look very criminal when you see them hanging around Donner kebab places. But it seems to me that if I were a European, seeing the scarves would just make me even angrier at what had happened with immigration over the past decade and a half. And make me vote oui or ja on a referendum like that in Switzerland. The Muslim women-and their native European citizens would be better served if they were not wearing them.

So count me in the camp of those in France who want to ban the hijab. Because it should be.

On other items, I’ve got 387 pictures to upload to my machine today. I’m thinking about getting a Flicker account and putting them there. I’ll let you know how that goes.

And now its time to go shave and shower and begin the day’s toil. Man it sure was nice being overseas!

Unfortnately, the day I have been dreading has arrived. I have to go back to Shopping Mall USA tomorrow.

Which is necessary, as poverty and joblessness does not become me well. However, I have felt more alive being across the pond and out of the USA than I have any other day this year ( except for my visit to E @ L headquarters for high level consultations. I REALLY felt alive then).

Its clear to me that I am meant to be outside my country of origin-and its also clear to me that I am a true city boy at heart.  Walking the streets of European cities brought back the sheer adrenilane rush I first had upon disembarking from CV-666 for the first port visit in Palma, so many years ago.

Now its just a way to find the vehicle to get there-1) Asia or 2) Europe. (South America or South Africa would work for an OK number 3).

Till then I can savor the fact that I had the resources to give the S.O. the trip SHE wanted-even if my version would have been scripted a LOT differently. (And would have included a lot more carousing at night!)

Travelogues galore when I get home. Till then here is a couple of snaps from our trip along the Rhine yesterday:

The City of Koblenz-taken from the Festung ( Fortress) that overlooks the city.

Here is one of the river Mosel as it joins the Rhine in Koblenz:

As you can tell the weather was less than great.

Which made this part of the day all the better!

Got to get ready to go. More pix to follow.

Back to the Weinachts Markt in the shadow of the great Cathedral. The Fruh beer hall is just 200 meters from there. It was crowded.

.21l  glasses were only 1.6 Euro. A band was playing on the other side of the square. And Herr Ober kept coming back to our table.

The rest you can figure out for yourself.  Guten Abend!

We have been really out and about. Ghent, Brugge, Brussels and Antwerp. Oh yea-we stopped in Maastricht on the way back to Koln today. So its been a busy but productive couple of days. That have not left much time for posting. I have some great observations about life and things over here-but if I jump into posting about them right now-a certain S.O. will be most upset because I’m up for a while. ( Light stays on in the room which bothers her).

So stay tuned.

P.S. I turned off the visual editor again to see if that stops comment chomping. Anybody got a theory why he FCK editor does that?

Something I have long suspected:

It's very simple why women don't like her as much as men. Women saw through Sarah Palin and we saw through her quickly. Men are literal and are more likely to say what they mean  and mean what they say. Women are more nuanced and better able to persuade and manipulate others with their words. So it's quite natural for us to be able to look below the surface of another woman's words and grasp the intentions behind them. 

Sarah Palin is the peppy cheerleader in high school all the boys thought was so sweet but the girls knew was really a vicious shrew. She's the new girl in the office who wears tight shirts and three-inch heels, is super-friendly to her male superiors, ignores the other women, and gets promoted sooner than her more capable and hard working peers. She's the outgoing PTA mom all of the other women are scared to cross because they will find themselves put on the worst committees. Only a woman knows how to give another woman a sweet smile and at the same time cut her down to size with an artfully crafted "compliment" without male observers having a clue about what just happened. It's like a dog whistle.

After her convention speech that so many pundits raved about, I talked to a few of my Republican girlfriends and they all disliked her immediately, telling me things like, "she's mean", "who does she think she is putting Obama down like that" and "I just don't like her". And these were women who, all except one, ended up voting for McCain anyway, although much less enthusiastically than they would have before his VP pick. The one who switched her vote to Obama did so solely because of Sarah Palin. It wasn't really the attack lines the McCain camp gave her to deliver that had turned my friends off. It was the relish with which she delivered them.

The Republican women I know who love Palin are a great deal like her–simplistic thinkers who are always feeling victimized themselves. I have a feeling that if the McCain camp had spent more than a weekend checking Palin out, a woman on his staff (my money would be on Nicole Wallace) would have figured out what kind of person she was and none of us would know her name right now.

 

True, true, true.

Well, the internet connection has turned out to be about as lazy as your average Frenchman-thus the posts have been lacking. Also truth be told-we have been covering a lot of territory between our first destination and our current one. As Paul guessed we were in Bonn for a day and a half. We wanted to see Beethoven's birthplace since we saw Mozart's last year. Also the Christmas market was open and in full swing.

Sunday we went to a town called Tongeren just in side the German border with Belgium. Although it looks just like the Netherlands and Dutch ( read: Flemish) is the only language that appears to be spoken there.

Tongeren is a charming town-and home to what is billed as Europe's largest antique fair. Thus the reason the S.O. wanted to go. Try to picture a city turned into one giant flea market:

With the parking garages full-of "stuff":

And the S.O. bound and determined to go through every bit of it:

That's her leading the charge. There were more booths and warehouses down the path. Me? I was looking at the 900 year old church:

After we had some coffee in the afternoon-it was back in the car and we bid Tongeren a fond farewell.

Big breasts shall not be abridged.

I'm agreeing with my Canadian Counterpart here and going to the trenches. " We draw the line here!"

I'm frankly exhausted by explaining how wonderful the US Constitution is to people who give me a polite hearing, and then tell me that they have no other choice but drown Arabs, wiretap themselves or give federally-priced hard-on pills to grandpa. I'm old, I'm tired, my chest hurts and I've had it with partisan intellectual laziness. Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann win, and I give in.

But there's one thing that I'm willing to fight for. I shall fight on the beaches, I shall fight on the landing grounds, I shall fight in the fields and in the streets, I shall fight in the hills; I shall never surrender. I shall fight to have sex with hot American women, whatever the cost in blood, sweat, toil and tears.

But, as was the case with my wanting filthy phone sex with some dirty American slut without some bureaucrat from the National Security Agency beating off rhythmically with me, I shall not surrender in this.

The White House and Senate Democrats have turned to a proposal to tax breast implants, tummy tucks, wrinkle-smoothing injections and other procedures as they search for ways to pay for costly health-care overhaul plans.

Vanity was an easy target as lawmakers scraped for cash for the nearly $1 trillion (U.S.) plan to expand health care to millions of Americans who lack insurance. But it's no joke to drug makers and people who perform cosmetic nips and tucks. And they're fighting back.

Skin-smoothing Botox injections could be hard hit. There were some 4.7 million last year at an average cost per visit of about $400.

Has anyone given any thought as to how this would impact Nancy Pelosi? Do any of you think that a woman of her vintage looks like the Joker naturally?

These are the same people that surf the porn pages marked "BBW". Give us all a break! Since I might want my insurance to pay for  my Viagra pills in the coming years-I've got to support the women of America here.

Please forgive the lack of posts. Internet access was spotty in the hotel-while the beer in bar downstairs was quite reliable. Now in a different city-with better internet.

Here are the clues for round one:

Beethoven was born here.

The UN has a headquarters here

This city was the site of Cold War intrigue.

Die Altester governed from here.

Answers in the comments section.

Out of pocket from Shopping Mall at the end of this week-as the S.O. and I go on a vacation over the holidays next week. Stay tuned for upcoming instalments of "Where's Waldo?".

And how much most Americans do not know about one of their most important allies.

Item 1. The bow that has the citizens of greater wingnuttia so upset. Here's a dose of reality from our British cousins:

They were nothing of the sort: the handshake, though not strictly necessary, has crept into bowing etiquette, particularly in international business and politics. What better way to illustrate the meeting of two cultures?

Far from embarrassment, there is consternation here that some Americans should be so incensed by their president's impeccable manners. If anyone was belittled it was Akihito, who stands eight inches shorter than the 6ft 1in Obama.

Etiquette experts in Japan have praised the president's efforts, while an Imperial Household Agency spokesman said the greeting looked "natural and appropriate".

At the very least it was an improvement on the cringeworthy efforts of celebrities, Madonna included, who greet their Japanese fans with a nod of the head, palms pressed together in prayer. Sorry, Madge … wrong country.

But the vitriol continues.

The folks at the Guardian do offer a remedy for conservative hacks like Hannity and William "The Bloody" Kristol:

The angle and length of a bow in Japan depends on who is bowing to whom. Etiquette demands that a 90-degree bow should be reserved for such occasions as meeting the emperor or another VIP, or as a sincere expression of apology or regret.

Context is everything. I have seen teachers perform an "Obama" in front of graduating pupils, and departing senior editors practically kiss their kneecaps before a newsroom of lowly hacks. Deference, or simple gratitude and civility?

The Obama administration has stepped in to defend the president. "I think that those who try to politicise those things are just way, way, way off base," an unnamed official said.

The state department, meanwhile, attempted to clear up any confusion over how Americans should behave abroad.

Thanks to their ignorance, Cheney, Kristol et al now owe Obama an apology. A perfectly executed dogeza, foreheads pressed to the ground, would be a good start.

Then there is item number two-and its one that I really am shocked that there is so much ignorance about how the Japanese view this particular set of events. Seems several members of the same blathering class are upset that Obama would not chime in on the subject of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. James Fallows has to explain it to them:

Last week some of Barack Obama's critics were upset that he ducked a question in Japan about whether he approved of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I cannot begin to say how short-sighted that criticism is.

In avoiding a direct answer to the question from a Japanese reporter about whether the bombing was justified, Obama did what any American president or diplomat should do when this topic is raised in Japan. There is no answer that would have worked out better for him than his not answering at all.

Now anyone who as spent a good bit of time in Japan and gotten out and about in the country,  should be able to relate to the same type of situation. Hiroshima is not a subject that one can "instruct" the Japanese. I'd go a step further and say it probably applies to World War II in general.  The damage inflicted on Japan is something that happened to them-the damage they inflicted on everyone else is something different to the Japanese. You don't have to agree with the point of view-but it just is what it is.

What is more important is that the Japanese have no desire to go back to it-and that comes through in their words and actions-which at this point almost 70 years later is what is really important.

But then again-this conversation is not really about the Japanese is it? Its about the current occupant of the White House. Fine. There is plenty of time to do that when he gets home.

Baka Americajin!

I'd do it myself, but it appears to have already been done for me:

Any one who has watched enough early morning Sunday TV will recognize some of the appeals to dog whistle listeners within:

Palin wants to be a celebrity, and was willing to act out what she understood to be a politician’s role to get the prerogatives of celebrity. When Bill Kristol’s Cruise Ship of Fools Neocons breezed into Juneau, Palin had aged out of the beauty-queen pageantry competitions that seem to have been her formative social training, her unwillingness or inability to handle the tedium of actual governance had her underlings trembling on the edge of revolt, and her attempts to reclaim Modern Supermom status on her own or by proxy weren’t going so well. It was… providential!… that Someone should send unto her a Messenger, trailing clouds of astroturfing calculation, proclaiming that Sarah Palin could be chosen to stand among the Elect. For lo, all her life she had been journaling, recording both the firewood-stacking and the prayers that were the Aleph and Omega of her Real American™ small-town red-state life—and at last her determined piety was rewarded! Prosperity Gospel, unbelievers!

For in her latest incarnation, Sarah Palin represents an American stereotype at least as old as the Chatauqua circuit and as new as the American Idol wannabes who get showcased in the early episodes of each new season for their combination of fervent conviction and utter lack of talent. She wishes—she feels entitled—to be Famous, in the way a thirteen-year-old writing fanfiction understands “famous”: Everyone should know her name, and want to be just like her, and love her not for her talents or her achievements but just because she’s Sarah. After all, God wants her to be happy, and how can she be happy if she’s not famous?

The beauty queen analogies are particularly apt if you ask me-think of Saint Sarah as a 1980's version of Miss California.

Palin/Prejean

I haven’t seen many comments about the similarities in the behavior of these two beauty queens.

Both expect to be treated with deference by journalists, and accuse the most milquetoast of old, male interviewers of bias.

They’re both conservative fundamentalist megachurch attendees.

Much of what they say is later proven to be a lie.

Both quit their day job to cash in.

Both have big skeletons in their closets, if you believe Levi Johnston.

Both have a gay blogger nemesis.

I think if you try to understand Palin as a beauty queen, it really explains her behavior as AK Gov—it was just a title to her, and she loved the ceremonial aspects while she dodged the real work. That’s also why I don’t really take her seriously as a candidate. She’s never going to do the work to win enough primaries to get the GOP nomination. Her campaign will look a lot like Rudy Guiliani’s—well financed, based on a few minutes of fame, and ultimately unable to engage with primary voters.

 

And finally, what of those vaunted "qualifications" my commenters keep talking about? I'll let Marc Ambinder explain for the fortieth time:

So save your self time and money and buy the Cliff Notes version of her book instead: 

From an email making its way around Wall Street this morning:

Our Chairman,
Who Art At Goldman,
Blankfein Be Thy Name.
The Rally’s Come. God’s Work Be Done
On Earth As There’s No Fear Of Correction.
Give Us This Day Our Daily Gains,
And Bankrupt Our Competitors
As You Taught Lehman and Bear Their Lessons.
And Bring Us Not Under Indictment.
For Thine Is The Treasury,
The House And The Senate
Forever and Ever.
Goldman.

The usual suspects get freaked out over an act of protocol.

As with much of the punditry in Tea Bag land, the columns above lack one thing as they lavish their criticism-context.

Bowing is an accepted social custom when first meeting someone in Japan-and is especially expected when meeting Tenno-sama. I’d also point out that many American officials have met the Emperor and have bowed-as well as -plenty of lower minions have met other government officials, such as myself. You can bet I bowed when meeting important people.

Plus when you see the actual meeting in the motion of real time-not just a frozen still shot-Obama’s bow is not in the least unusual, and its quite similar to others I have seen when meeting an important Japanese dignitary.

Its not that different from anyone else. That the Emporer did not bow back is also not unusual-the President was on Tenno-sama’s “home turf”.  If you do a Google search or an index on You Tube you can find plenty of other heads of state who have done the same thing when meeting the Emperor.

And I suppose no remembers the Commander of US Naval Forces in Japan bowing deep to members of the Japanese goverment?

It won’t stop O’Reilly and Hannity and the rest of the mentally retarded commentators from having kittens over it though. But, as it typical for them, they will be wrong.

Move along-there is nothing to see or talk about here.

Watching Sean Hannity. Remember the Star Trek episode where everyone on the Enterprise got old fast? Jon Stewart very aptly captures the effects here:

A couple of weeks ago, the S.O. and I drove over to Chattanooga-just to get out of the house and see the fall colors. The day  we picked, quite by accident, was glorious.

We drove over to the base of Lookout Mountain and rode the Incline up to the top. S.O. probably would have preferred that I drove up-but I had heard about this and wanted to try it:

Follow us up to the top!

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