Back from Amsterdam

I took me about 21 hours via train, plane, bus, and subway to get from Amsterdam back to St. Petersburg. I stumbled into my apartment around 7am, and woke up around 12:30. It was impossible to sleep on the overnight bus from Tallinn. For the first half, my left leg was being broiled by the radiator on the floor. The second half was equally unbearable due to the seats themselves, which must have been designed for Guantanamo prisoners. By the time I got off, I was rambling delirious to myself in an English accent, repeating my justification for not telling the driver about my seatmate, who I was convinced had died in the bathroom.

Oh, Amsterdam was great by the way. Everybody rides bikes or trams, and together with the canals and convoluted alleys they create the impression of a cluttered, spidery city, full of nooks and crannies for experimenting with completely legal things like weed and prostitutes. All I can say is thank goodness our government protects us from evil. I nearly went wild in the absence of its fatherly hand.

I like to try to end my posts with something I found online. Here's an article from the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz called "Shattering a National Mythology" http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/966952.html. Now that national identity is widely seen as an invented concept, it was only a matter of time before somebody took on Jewish nationalism.

Memory Lane Occasionally Runs Through Baghdad

I think everybody had that moment when they realized the Iraq War was actually going to happen––that 'oh my god' moment when it became clear that the UN proceedings would terminate, the Congress would vote, and the tan-colored troops in tan-colored tanks would sweep across the desert.

When it finally happened, even the most vicious pundits stopped arguing and wondered about the future: Would they greet us with flowers or anthrax? Would we lose 10 troops or 10,000 troops? Would it cost $50 billion of $500 billion. How long would it last? Where would Saddam be? What would the WMDs look like if we found them?

I came across this photo essay of the war, which took me back to my sophomore year of high school. Looking at the images, some of which I hadn't seen in five years, I was surprised to feel not the anger I feel now, but the hope and awe I felt back then, when I believed our fantastic weapons and healthy soldiers were invincible and our representative government incapable of making such big mistakes. I'd like to think I was more cynical back then. I don't remember actually believing the administration's pre-war rhetoric, but I must not have disbelieved it either. I didn't and still don't think I had access to the information which would have swayed me one way or the other and I'm certain this was deliberate on somebody's part. Even so, now that 25% of my life has been lived under this war, I increasingly regret that I didn't try harder to understand what was happening and to determine for myself whether it was right or wrong.

What do they bring to mind for you?: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4227

How did Eliot Spitzer become Client No.9?

He hasn't formally resigned yet but it can't be long before he does. I just watched his speech––businesslike and fidgety. Everyone said there were tears in his eyes but I didn't see them or hear him choke up. He was just his normal robotic self. His wife, standing by his side, was dejected and emotionless. Unlike Eliot, she actually looked like she was having the worst day of her life.

I've been reading the Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo about the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment that demonstrated the awesome power situational forces can have on individual behavior. The book refers specifically to prisoner abuse, but I wonder what the situational forces are that lead politicians to act like they do. Perhaps they could help explain how a Harvard/Princeton educated prosecutor and 'anti-crime' governor could make such a stupid mistake.

Thought of the Day for March 5th

There are two types of people in this world: those who would rather cook, and those who would rather do the dishes.

The March of the Nesoglasniki

I observed the march against the political status quo this afternoon (a 'nesoglasnik' is literally 'one who does not agree'). Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion, was there in his capacity as leader of the United Civil Front. In the foreign press he's the face of the opposition, though he reality (and among the Russians who care) he shares this role with a small group that includes former members of the Yeltsin administration and at least one former Putinist. In the video, you see the procession (chanting here "We are not slaves!"), then about seventeen seconds in you'll notice a bunch of guys marching hand-in-hand in a circle. They're protecting two of the leaders of the Other Russia movement: Edward Limonov (a communist and well-known novelist), and Kasparov, who is on the far left in the leather cap. A bystander calls out his name (literally "Garry, son of Kimov" in formal Russian style), Kasparov turns, and the man shouts "spacibo!"––"thank you!".



I had mixed feelings about going to the protest (mostly security related) but now I'm glad I went. It was uplifting to see such a diverse group standing up to the Russian government, though the irony is that diversity is Other Russia's main weakness; the only thing that unites them is their distaste for Putin. I was also relieved that there was no head-cracking as there was at the simultaneous march in Moscow (in part because that march wasn't officially sanctioned).