A Different Drummer

Hungarian food is wonderful, life-affirming stuff. It exists in complete synergy with everything I believe to be True and Right. Last night we went to a modest little wood panelled food place just around the corner from Peter's house - and it delivered wonderfulness in bucketloads...

First up was a entree of Palacinta (stuffed pancakes), stuffed with a pork stew, topped with chillis, onions and sour cream. Swimming in delicious mild paprika sauce. Grrrr.



The main event spoke for itself. I've done a fair bit of eating in my time, but this was the single greatest Manly Plate O' Meats Iáve ever seen.



A construction of four different types of meat, topped with an omlette, build on foundations of fried potatoes. Surrounded rice, onions, cabbage and paprika paste. Unspeakably good. The combined eating power of Peter and I couldnt event come close to defeating it, we took a good amount of it home in a box.

To reapeat myself - Budapest is the best place in the world.

I am in Budapest. It is still awesomely great. I am already beginning to scheme on how I can end up living here someday. Just. Frigging. Awesome.

Democratic reform in Egypt takes another step forward. Mabrouk!

"For the first time since the days of the pharaohs, the Egyptian people
will choose their ruler"

Woot.

There are some clearly good things going on in the Middle East right now, and a definite cause for optimism. And then there is some things which suggest that change is still far, far away....

Another duality for the day - things are great here in Romania, but I am getting tired of all this conference stuff. 3 hours sleep per night, endless parties and great conversations and loads of fun still do not compensate the fact that 9 days make a LONG conference. Feels like I have been here for a month. I am really looking forward to my three days in Budapest - also known as "best place in the frigging world" once starting from sunday.

Oh, and the conference I am at, International Presidents Meeting, will be held in the Netherlands next year. The combination of IPM and legal marijuana will be frighteningly awesome. Even more awesome, is that after the decision made last night, IPM in February 2007 will be held in....drumroll....CAIRO!!! We worked really hard on securing support for our bid and winning the bid last night against two other really excellent bids felt great.

I really want to be there in 2007 to see it, even if from the perspective of a random tourist onlooker. Big ups Cairo!

Long Live The Doctor.

Hunter S. Thompson was and is my hero - an embodiment of the full possibility of human expression, crazy as they come and as good a writer as anyone in the English language. If you haven't read "Hells Angels", go pick it up right now, it is one of the best books you will ever read. Obituaries for Hunter from Tom Wolfe and Christopher Hitchens are also well worth a read.

In my opinion, weblogs are the logical, online evolution of the personal, instantaneous, subjective journalism that Thompson trademarked. We all owe a lot to him, and he would have been a damn fine blogger.His work recently was nothing notable - like many, his career should be defined by his sweet spot, the period between about 1967 and 1974 where he released "Hells Angels", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Fear and Loathing on the campaing trail", and a whole bunch of brilliant magazine articles that were compiled together in "The Great Shark Hunt".For me, his most memorable recent work was his obituary of Richard Nixon - probably the best written demolition of an individual you will ever read. Go read the whole thing right now, it is devastating:

" If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin. "

If you want to get into some real Hunter action, check out this article, "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved". God damn it he writes so well, it exposes me as the cliched amateur hack that I am.

Here's to you, Doctor. You have probably directly or indirectly inspired more young writers than anyone else of your generation. I'll be doing something awful in your memory as soon as possible.

A discussion I have been having with a few people recently is that Egyptians, despite living in a fairly poor, developing country, do not make up the massive numbers of migrants as do other comparable counties.

What I mean is, think about Chinese, Pakistani, Indians, Lebanese, Turkish etc. Nearly every rich western country (and a lot of less rich ones too) would have entire massive communities made up of people from these countries. I know Australia, Ireland and the UK do, and I'm sure others do as well. France and Germany are something like 10% Muslim now, Germany thanks to its 5 million+ Turkish immigrants (UPDATE: Thomas in comments points out that this figure is...ummm...bullshit, and that it is more like 2 million Turkish (2.5%) and 3 million total muslims (3%) - I'll shut up now...) , and France with its North Africans. Compared to these countries, Egypt does not have a massive community of overseas economic migrants.

Egypt is heavily populated, has a massive peasant class and a huge lower class, offers little social mobility for the less fortunate, and lacks a lot of the freedoms that people often desire. You would think this would result in a steady flow of Egyptians heading abroad to start a new life.

You do get "professional" migration, especially into the US and UK (and, for some reason, Austria). That is, middle class, well educated Egyptians heading to places where their skills and education will earn them better pay and a better lifestyle. But there has never been a big outpouring of lower class Egyptians leaving the country to find better opportunities - at least not that I know.

There are a few possible reasons for this:

- (Relative) peace - unlike most of the other countries that have produced large overseas communities, Egypt has not had any civil war, invasion, major terrorist insurgency, dictatorship or ethnic/sectarian violence for a long, long time. (the '67 and '73 wars with Israel were significant, but did not impact the entire population, were finished within weeks not years, and were fought mainly in unpopulated areas)

- The Gulf - lots and lots of Egyptians go to earn money in Saudi Arabia, or the other Gulf states. More so than other North Africans or Levantine countries. And when you go to the Gulf to earn money, you do not move your whole family and life there for good - you leave your family at home, go there and earn big money for 5 years, sending enough home to keep the family going, then return with a big pile of delicious Gulf money.

- Its Just a Nice Place - related to the (relative) peace, maybe Egypt is just a (relatively) nice place to be, even for the peasant classes. A vibrant, energetic society, in a physically beautiful land, and no huge driving force pushing people to get out.

It is interesting though. I think a major indicator for a messed up country that needs help is the volume of its citizens who just want to get the hell out. Large scale outward immigration, especially of the middle/lower classes, is somehow a barometer of the standard of living and standard of government in each country. Hence, Australia has very few Canadian immigrants, but whole suburbs full of Cambodian or Vietnamese. I've never seen a district of Norwegian grocery stores anywhere in the world, but every major city has a Chinatown. And for many years, one of the biggest refugee communties in the world was the Afghani's in Pakistan - a community that practically dissapeared after the fall of the Taliban. Ironically, Pakistan itself is completely dependant on money coming in from Pakistanis living abroad (primarily in the UK). So one mans hellhole can be another mans refuge.

If anyone lives in a place with a big Egyptian community, I'd love to hear about it. And I'm not talking professional migrants like doctors and engineers, I mean people leaving looking for a better life in large numbers. I hear Detroit and all of Michigan have large Arab communities - but mainly Omani's and Yemeni. Any bloggers from this region, your comments would be great.

Latest Bin Laden message, courtesy of Americas finest news source:

"Allah willing, embarrassment and tearful rejection shall rule this day," bin Laden said. "Paper hearts shall be rent and trod upon, and dreams of love delivered stillborn. Body language shall be misinterpreted, crushes unrequited, and sincere expressions of affection mocked. Invitations to dinner will be rejected, just as Americans have rejected Allah, the one true God."

The monster. Who doesnt want people to enjoy Valentines Day?

UPDATE: Egyptian florists, thats who. The fuckers who we're supposed to be dropping a whole bunch of red ones on Thea today managed to....how do you say this.....NOT DO IT. I am not impressed. I will go back tomorrow and sodomise the staff one by one until they give me my money back. Actually, I don't care about the money. But the sodomy is important.

UPDATE 2: I just realised that my Valentines day post contained references to Osama Bin Laden, and two bad sodomy jokes. Surely this is some kind of record.

I'm going to Romania this Friday....

Much is happening in the nomadlife blogosphere:

Luly has brought up a very important point that anyone interested in the Middle East should read. (UPDATE: Nisrin has also entered the debate. Comments threads on both posts make good reading)

I always suspected that Thea had another man in her life, but I wasnt expecting her to advertise it to the whole world....

Old Skool Adelaidean Paulie is on a mission to learn converstional Mandarin in 365 days....With 337 days left it is looking good.

The nomadlife food blog is mouth watering and hunger inducing food porn. Not the best idea for reading when in hungry, money-less situations.

Something very cool is about to happen in Sharm El Sheikh.....

UPDATE: Done. A truce between Israel and the Palestinians has been signed. This is awesome.

This terrible supermarket advertisement billboard has been all over the place since I have been in Cairo. Is it just me or is the little girl a little too posessed by satan for your typical commercial shoot? Seriously, how did this image of plain fundamental evil manage to make it through to final production? Am I the only one who sees satan in this picture?



Seriously, seconds after that photo was taken the little girl bites deep into daddy's neck, drinking at the sweet blood that flows forth....

If you are interested in Islam and its moderate leaders reaction to fundamentalism, this article gives a run through of one of the most fantastic and under-reported innovations in the battle between the fundamentalists and the moderates in the Islamic world.

In Yemen, judges are entering into religious debate with captured militants, battling them verbally rather than physically. Intellectual debate based of Koranic theories lies at the heart of Islamic learning and teaching, and one smart judge in Yemen has worked out that it could play a vital role in combating violent fundamentalsm.

"SANAA, YEMEN – When Judge Hamoud al-Hitar announced that he and four other Islamic scholars would challenge Yemen's Al Qaeda prisoners to a theological contest, Western antiterrorism experts warned that this high-stakes gamble would end in disaster.

Nervous as he faced five captured, yet defiant, Al Qaeda members in a Sanaa prison, Judge Hitar was inclined to agree. But banishing his doubts, the youthful cleric threw down the gauntlet, in the hope of bringing peace to his troubled homeland.

"If you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Koran, then we will join you in your struggle," Hitar told the militants. "But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence."

The judge who is driving this strategy is consulting with other Muslim countries, encouraging this approach to be taken across the world. It is an enlightened, idealistic and practical concept:

"If you study terrorism in the world, you will see that it has an intellectual theory behind it," says Hitar. "And any kind of intellectual idea can be defeated by intellect."

Read the whole article, amazing stuff.

AIESEC Egypt's National Conference 2005 this weekend. It will be held here....

Life is difficult sometimes....

The evergrowing posse of Cairo based nomads has another new member blogging it up Misr style - my new housemate Chris Bowman. And he is in fine form already, having not only recently performed one of the great social mistakes of Egyptian family life, but blogged the whole experence in full colour nomadvision.

I won't ruin the surprise of what he did, go read the posting, but as a clue - when he says at the end:

"At least it happened in a pretty safe environment where I didn't get into too much trouble."

He actually means..................."when her husband and brothers take revenge by decapitating me with a razor-sharp scimitar, I will know that I died a decent and honourable death"