oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo mama
i know more about Japanese feudalism than i ever...
wait a minute: i mean, yeah, that exam did pretty much consume my every waking moment this week...but it was fun!

hmmmmm....four years into schooling, and i'm actually getting into the spirit of higher education. for one, i can still remember (i still want to remember!) the stuff i studied for the exam AFTER the exam is done. weird...

well, it's good that that's done, because we're heading off to DC this weekend, to visit rafiki zetu Mike "Mickle" (shudder-vomit) Diercks, the happily engaged one. And we'll go to the North American Christians in Social Work Convention. And we're leaving tonight, so I don't have classes tomorrow! Booo Yah, think I'll go visit Georgetown and check out their masters program, on the odd chance that I can find someone to cover the tab!

In other news, I found the perfect yearbook quote, mangled it down the required size (how can you seriously expect anyone to say anything significant in 275 characters or less? really? I should definitely bring in Dr. Oakerson on supporting arguement there...if you can't do anything worthwhile in your lifetime, how are you supposed to say anything worthwhile in 275 characters, and that's counting punctuation and spaces too--better use long words.)

Here's a quote that didn't make the cut sheerly due to length, but is in fact very very awesome:

"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.

"I'm dying of thirst," said Jill.

"Then drink," said the Lion.

"May I--could I--would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked for the whole mountain to move aside just for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

"Will you promise not to--do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.

"I make no promise," said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

"Do you eat girls?" she said.

"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.

"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.

"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."



"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

--CS Lewis, The Silver Chair

so I have this little private blog where I dump all the posts that are too rambling/raging/personal/inane/depressive and I feel good because it's just a scribbling board for myself. until I realized today that under my profile is a handy listing of my most recent posts, including the "FOR DAN'S EYES ONLY" ones. Ooops. glad I rectified that! it's kind of like making faces at yourself in the mirror and then remembering that the mirror is really a store window and everyone is watching...

"Almost invariably Western leaders claim they are acting on behalf of "the world community." One minor lapse occured during the run-up to the [First] Gulf War. In an interview on "Good Morning America," Dec. 21, 1990, British Prime Minister John Major referred to the actions "the West" was taking against Saddam Hussein. He quickly corrected himself and subsequently referred to "the world community." He was, however, right when he erred." --Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations?

Jon Stewart did a brilliant job yesterday, on the Daily Show, critiquing a statement by George W. Bush in which the President indicated that Iraq was the logical next choice in the war on terrorism. Stewart noted that actually, there is more evidence for terrorist backing from Saudi Arabia (most of the 9-11 hijackers were carrying Saudi passports) and Iran. There is, actually, very little linkage between Iraq and terror.

"Experience suggests that the prevention of state failure depends almost entirely on a scare commodity: international political will." [emphasis added]

Robert I. Rothberg, Failed States in a World of Terror.

This, of course, applies to most instances of international intervention. In the American discourse, Iraq is an enemy, Saudi Arabia is a friend, and Iran is not a threat. In the American discourse, Iraq is feared and Israel is not; one is allowed to posess weapons of mass destruction stolen from America, and the other is sacked at the mere speculation of seeking the ability to build such weapons. The fact of the matter is, even the war on terror is subject to and directed by questions of political feasibility.

Iraq found itself at a critical juncture in world history: the American public was spoiling for a fight, Iraq was already percieved as an enemy, America had economic interests in the area, intervention was justifiable for humanitarian reasons, and the legitimacy of her government was publicly questioned. Iraq's main mistake was not belonging, like Saudi Arabia, North Korea and China, to gentleman's club of world politics.

so...my blogs are beginning to look increasingly like my papers, and my papers are beginning to sound increasingly like long blogs.

i think somewhere between Tanzania and hiking philosophy I completely lost the ability to be anything like a disciplined academic.

Once More, this is a brilliant, brilliant individual who happens to also be thinking just what i'm thinking but so much better:

hansypansy

"Hi Mum and Dad,
It seems like a long time since I've written. I've been waiting for some things to coalesce, and waiting, and waiting, and studying madly (yes, I really am--not just covering up lots and lots of procrastination) and so far nothing really has coalesced except for the grace of God and a growing sense of confused wonder.

one of my favorite books is called To Say Nothing of the Dog. Connie Willis wrote it, and I feel like Ned the protagonist: I have to get shuffled off and stuck in the middle of a nighttime thunderstorm in a half-complete cathedral in the 12th century so that whoever's in charge can actually fix the problem I've been trying to solve since the beginning of the book and have only been mucking up.

except that the Grand Designer is using my fixation with one problem to muck around in all sorts of wonderful ways in my life and teach me all sorts of important things and fix tons of internal stuff i didn't know was broke...without actually doing anything to make things better in the one problem i'm fixated on. all that other stuff is really nice, boss, but [edited] is what i wanted you to help me out with, dagnabbit. :)

i really am smiling right now. so, i think, is that mysterious presence out of the corner of my vision with the just-possibly-mischevious twinkle in his just-barely-visible eye.

the only thing that's coalescing right now is the grace of God and my growing realization of its all-encompassing presence. i feel like i jumped off one skyscraper to another, missed, am now hovering strangely in midair, midleap, and just found out that i'm in my underwear and now i'm desperately hoping that no one miles below will look up and find me out until i can sort my way out of this strange limbo. but i'm getting used to the limbo, too, and it's a heck of a lot better than plummeting to a messy, and embarassingly unclad, end. and maybe whatever it is that's holding me up here has some kind of master plan that involves...staying in this odd unresolution for a while.

well...that's wierd. but i'm a wierd guy. and in celebration of that wierdness, check out the lovely picture of me on my friend tagan's bloggything.

Robert Jervis, "The Compulsive Empire" (Essential Readings in World Politics, Karen Mingst and Jack Snyder, 2nd Edition.)

"Put simply, power is checked most effectively by counterbalancing power, and a state that is not subject to severe external pressures tends to feel few restraints at all. Spreading democracy and liveralism throughout the world has always been a U.S. goal, but having so much power makes this aim a more realistic one. It is not as if the Middle East has suddenly become more fertile ground for American ideals; it's just that the United States now has the means to impose its will. The quick US triumph in Afghanistan contributed to the expansion of Washington's goals, and the easy military victory in Iraq will encourage an even broader agenda. The Bush administration is not worried it's new doctrine of preventative war will set a precedent for other nations, because US officials believe the dictates that apply to others do not bind the United States. This is not a double standard, they argue; it is realistic leadership." (emphasis added)

The United States is criticized for intervening all over the place in order to advance their own interests. I contend that the United States, in order to do any good in this world, must marry humanitarian interest to the realism of world and domestic politics. If President Bush capitalizes on public outrage against terrorism to meet humanitarian goals in Iraq and finish a job that was left undone after the Persian Gulf war, then so be it. Even humanitarians have to be opportunists.

Heres another thought. When you need someone to get the job done, someone you can trust, you turn to your friends. Of course, if those friends happen to be old colleagues, such as Halliburton & Co, well, that's immediately construed as dirty politics. So this begs the question: I know nothing about VP Cheney and the Halliburton scandal. But isn't it a bit odd to immediately assume wrongdoing in the awarding of contracts? Maybe Halliburton happen to be the men for the job...

Tonight's inspirational thought is taken from John Mearsheimer's "Anarchy and the Struggle for Power," an essential text in international relations.

"Bedrock Assumptions:
"The first assumption is that the international system is anarchic...There is no 'goverment over governments.'
"The second assumption is that great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability, which gives them the wherewithal to hurt and possibly destroy each other. States are potentially dangerous to each other, although some states have more military might than others and are therefore more dangerous. A state's military power is usually identified with the particular weaponsry at its disposal, although even if there were no weapons, the individuals in those states could still use their feet and hands to attack the population of another state. After all, for every neck, there are two hands to choke it."