February 2010
81 posts
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“Some of the children mentioned that they have parents. According to a...”
– Americans detained in Haiti were ‘trying to rescue children’ | World news | The Guardian
January 2010
31 posts
“After 26 years in captivity, Nelson Mandela did not want to be set free straight...”
– Why FW de Klerk let Nelson Mandela out of prison | World news | The Observer
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Transgenderism in Pakistan →
A very interesting look at a community that seems to be a blend of Geisha-esque sponsorship/discipline and a transgender identity…
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A personal update/Gay rights tangent?
Well I suppose I haven’t written a real entry for a while, sorry bout that, chock it up to being back at school, or busy adjusting back to modern life, or whatever you want, but I haven’t been all that good at keeping communication up to date. I have gotten a lot of good writing done, and am getting into the intensive revision stage with some friends and trusted professors, which is quite...
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Holocaust survivors' stories | World news |The... →
So, it’s Holocaust Memorial Day. Anyone who knows me knows that I get a little disgruntled around such days, primarily because we don’t have an Angola remembrance day, an Apartheid SA Remembrance day, or a Rwanda remembrance day, all of which the west played a far larger role in than in Nazi germany. The US should really consider a “we have supported the killing of far more...
I just woke up from a dream about working at petsmart (I did in highschool) that ended in me selling a fishtank, which resulted in a singalong of The Beatles’ “Imagine.” Christ i’m lame.
Ethiopian plane crashes into sea off Beirut |World... →
This is a bit upsetting… I get that nobody makes a big deal out of it because it was mostly Ethiopians and Lebanese, but that’s a brand new plane and a world class airline, and I could easily have been on it.
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Americans and Canadians apply to be Refugees in... →
Obviously there are more questions than answers about things like motives and whatnot, but I find it quite interesting. I wonder what was really driving these people away, and what prevented them from using the easier methods (working permits etc) available to them?
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Guardian: "Haiti effort 'could have saved more'" →
This is infuriating….
“As the number of voices from beneath the rubble dwindled, each new alert drew multiple rescue teams. A female voice heard beneath debris on the roof of the Olympic Market on Tuesday, for instance, drew teams from Haiti, France, Turkey and the United States. By the time the 25-year-old was pulled out 12 hours later there were more than 100 firefighters, dog...
As I walked out accross the tarmac to my waiting plane (named after the country’s biggest terrible brewery, I guess it’d be the equivalant of Air Nattie?) I was slapped by the last wave of South Indian sun I am to experience, at least on this trip, and I couldn’t help but feel a little sad. I was completely frustrated up until my departure, because my flight is late…....
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On leaving...
So, I’ve done it, whatever “it” really means. I’ve made it to the airport, where the first of my precariously small planes will take me up towards Delhi, and then a 15 hour flight will take me nonstop to New York. I could definitely stay here longer, but for whatever reason there is a piece of me that is quite ready to go home. Part of it is that the thought of everyone...
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So sentimental...
Oh god. I think I’m having the stereotypical “India Experience” that I thought was far too cliche to happen to me.
I’m sitting here at a tiny breakfast joint/pharmacy (yes, the same place) and all these old India hands just ran into each other. They hadn’t seen each other in eight years, but they remember each other, and kept talking about how you “always run...
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The Beach...
So I apologize for not being better about keeping this updated recently, but it’s a bid difficult to motivate myself to get up off of the beach, out of the sun, and go to an internet cafe… I guess that’s understandable.
Anyway, I am at the beach in Varkala (I haven’t taken pictures for the same reason” and it is without question one of the nicest beaches I have ever...
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Nostalgia...
So, as our super slow houseboat trip steams on (it isn’t really a steamboat, bit it sort of feels like it both in its style and low speed) I find myself thinking of Africa with extreme nostalgia. I’m not really sure what it is, considering that there were certainly a ton of things I didn’t like about Africa, especially touristy Africa, but part of me is thinking about going...
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Woah...
Brace yourself. This entry is actually going to be pleasant.
We’ve finally made our way onto our houseboat in Kerala, and it is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done, definitely the most interesting non-cultural thing we’ve done in India. For about 90 dollars a night (a little less), we’ve rented a 60 or 70 foot two story houseboat, complete with chef and driver, for...
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My vacation within a vacation
All in all it’s exceptional… even when it’s cloudy it is a warm, moist 30 degrees celcious in Kerala.
I’m pretty glad to be down here, as the north was simply getting intolerable… it was way too cold and stressful towards the end. Scott and I decided that we couldn’t take our trains to the tiger safari because they were running a good 350% longer than schedule...
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On the power of fog...
I’ve always considered myself to have a relatively strong understanding of the power of weather. Growing up (in part) in New Hampshire, big snow was a fact of life… one foot, two feet, sometimes more, and yet life rarely ground to a halt. It definately took more than twenty inches to get a day off of school, and anything more than a week off was nearly impossible.
In Sumatra, I...
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A quick note on sexuality
A quick note on sexuality…
So, we were sitting on the train, and an indian drag queen came over and stroked my body.
This was completely acceptable in a country that puts homosexuals in prison for 10 years and shuns any PDA from homo OR heterosexual countries.
God I wish I took a picture.
Andrew
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I need a vacation
Yes, I realize that there is at least a little bit of irony in that statement, but I do. North India is fucking cold. And full of loud children. Don’t get me wrong. I like it a lot, the history, the forts, and the fact that it has Delhi, possibly one of my favorite cities I’ve visited. But I’m sort of tired of freezing my ass off on overnight trains, and listening to...
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Cameltime
So, now that the previously described Indian Railways meltdown has been described (and hopefully it is the last one for a few days, because we have a billion overnight and long distance rail trips in the coming days) I have a whole day with nothing to do but eat and write, which is actually sort of nice. So, I will now recount the glory of my camel safari.
First of all, camels are substantially...
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Jesus christ.
So, I am back from my camel safari, and that went well… but more on that later.
As you can likely imagine, scott and I were exceptionally tired after completing our 3 days getting tossed around by camels. Actually, scott only had 2, thanks to an episode of delhibelly, but whatever.
We were SO excited for our 18 hour train leaving at 5 PM (you can imagine it would be thrilling), and got to...