A Different Drummer

In Rotterdam. All is cool.

Missing Cairo - its so quiet here, and I keep wondering where all the people are.

More soon....

Today Egyptians will vote on President Hosni Mubarak's constitutional amendment, which proposes to allow multi candidate elections, in replacement of the current farcial system of a referendum "approving" the single candidate proposed by the parliament (which is composed 90% of one party).

Of course, this constitutional change is a crock. It still doesnt allow anyone to run for president, only those who meet a number of pre-qualifications, including, effectively, being approved by the current government. And the government has been opening a big can of whoop-ass on opposition groups ever since announcing the "reforms", including imprisoning the leader of the main opposition party, along with around 1000 members of the banned (but tolerated, and popularly supported) Muslim Brotherhood, and harshly policing the protests of the mainstream "Kefaya" (literally translated, "Enough") movement.

Laura Bush was in town during the week, and didnt exactly do the pro-democracy intentions of the US government any good when she praised these phony reforms, and made some seriously weird comments about how political reform must happen "slowly". If this is the real policy of the US administration - appeasing half-assed dictator allies by praising their purely symbolic reform gestures, then their support for democratisation in the Middle East is little more than the cynical "cover" that their opponents suggest it is.

So, Thea flew to Ethiopia last night. I still cant believe I am saying things like that. Who goes to Ethiopia?

Without getting gushy, Thea really made my year in Egypt that amazing experience that it was. Thanks for that, babe. Enjoy Ethiopia! I'm expecting photos and blogging to start rolling in soon - I have absolutely no idea what Addis Ababa is like as a city, and I imagine almost no-one reading this does either, so having Thea illuminate the place for all of us should be great.

Three schoolgirl sisters have given birth aged 12, 14 and 16.
(BBC News)

There mother must be so proud to continue the legacy of useless irresponsible parenting that she obviously worked so hard on herself. She seems to have a grip on the mistakes she has made though, because in a show of real responsibility, she has declared " "I don't care what people say about me. I blame the schools - sex education for young girls should be better."

To demonstrate their families complete lack of civilised instinct, the children are named, in order of age, T-Jay, Amani and Lita.

Life can be wonderful.

This New York Times stuff is about as horrible as it gets.....

"Military lawyers noted that the autopsies of the two dead detainees had found severe trauma to both prisoners' legs - injuries that a coroner later compared to the effect of being run over by a bus. They also acknowledged statements by more than half a dozen guards that they or others had struck the detainees.....

"No one blow could be determined to have caused the death," the former senior staff lawyer at Bagram, Col. David L. Hayden, said he had been told by the Army's lead investigator. "It was reasonable to conclude at the time that repetitive administration of legitimate force resulted in all the injuries we saw."

Turns out that the poor bastard was a taxi driver, unlucky enough to be driving past a US base the day after a rocket attack. He was 5'9 and weighed and intimidating 122 pounds - imtimidating enough for him to get chained by his arms to the roof of a cell and beaten more than 100 times in the 24 hours before he died.

Mazzy recently made a very interesting post about her experience so far working in the global head office of ABN-AMRO. It brings up a lot of the initial reservations I felt upon hearing that a brilliant, creative genius like Mazzy was planning on joining a large Dutch investment bank. Mazzy says:

"... after attending a whole day workshop on sustainability, the continual reference to the core business of the bank as 'making profit' was more than unrattling to me when the point was repeated over and over......

There is no way I am staying more than 6 months, but I am enjoying my time and the people. It would just be better if it was for an organisation that I actually believed in."

Absolutely. I would have thought that sentiments like this would be fairly common for a passionate ex-AIESEC'er experiencing the vision-free zone that is corporate life. And before anyone chimes in with "but my company has a very relevant vision" - shut up. No it doesnt. Corporate visions are slickly produced branding statements made up to create a shiny, motivational sheen over the top of what is an otherwise soul-less and uninspiring organisation.

A whole load of comments followed Mazzy's post, seemingly disagreeing with the idea that a business driven by the need to deliver financial profit to shareholders isnt the place for a person who wants to change the world. To be honest, I was quite surprised, and dissapointed, by this.

I have something to say on this issue:

If you are an ex-AIESEC'er, now comfortably employed in corporate life, enjoying the salary, benefits, travel and nice surrounds that accompany a good job, cool. Congratulations. Enjoy it. You probably do some very challenging work, with some very smart and talented people, and the reward and success that com with the work are tributes to your own intelligence and ability. Congratulations. Again.

But.

By trying to suggest that your work has any equivelance to people actually, you know, changing the world, improving peoples lives and driving organisations which make the world a better place, you are cheapening the work of these vision driven organisations, and cheapening your own understanding of change that you got from AIESEC.

It is easy to turn any normal business' core work into something vision'y sounding. Just apply the 30 second corporate whitewash. Your company produces consumer goods? Well, fear not, because you are "delivering products which improve the lives of your customers". Work in a bank? You are "helping people and businesses grow by becoming financially sustainable". Its easy to make up this corporate motivation talk, and its even easier to swallow it and believe in it, especially when a big pay cheque and worldly perks come with the territory.

So, keep enjoying smoking that big corporate dick. We all need to enjoy the fruits of our labours sometimes. Enjoy it. Love it. I'll probably join you sometime in the next couple of years. But dont equate yourself to anything more than a component of the great white collared mind-hive, achieving little more ijn your professional life than the slow demise and destruction of enlightened civilisation.

Back to regular programming, right after the break...........

The North Coast of Egypt is the most beautiful slice of ocean I have ever seen. Mediterranean Egyptian Goddess of the Ocean, I salute you.

If you have either already seen the new Star Wars film, or you havent, and don't mild a mild degree of plot spoiling, then this razor sharp skewering of George Lucas' craptastic destruction of his once wonderful masterpiece is just brilliant.

On Yoda:

''Deepest mind in the galaxy, apparently, and you still express yourself like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book. ''I hope right you are''. Break me a fucking give''

And on unspeakably bad Star Wars dialogue:

''The prize for the least speakable burst of dialogue has, over half a dozen helpings of''Star Wars'' grown into a fiercely contested tradition, but for once the winning entry is clear, shared between Anakin and Padme for their exchange of endearments at home:

''You're so beautiful.''
''That's only because I'm so in love.''
''No, it's because I'm so in love with you.''

Ugh. That is seriously painful. George Lucas should be shot, damn him. I'll still be throwing a crisp 10 euro note into his vast swimming pool of money, however, when I sit down for the final Star Wars installment in Rotterdam. He only hurts me because he loves me, I swear.

And again for Star Wars fans, here is a Penny Arcade primer for what we will undoubtably be exposed to in the coming week.

I ditched the geo-loc thing on the sidebar in favour of something even cooler. Its a browser-in-a-browser! Well I think its cool at least - and yes, my parents never bought me toys when I was growing up.

Seriously though, its pretty sweet. I have it set by default to the BBC news page, but you can open whatever website you want in there - just click the "open URL" button. No need to ever leave my blog - just surf away in 300 X 300 pixel tiny goodness, with my overwhelming presence always looming in the background.

I got two emails this morning from the people I will be working with on next years AIESEC International team. They both had quotes that I think need reproducing - I love how these guys just drop lines like this so effortlessly.

First, from Petr, who will be my boss on the External Relations team:

"I'm actually leaving Prague in 11 days as Vaibhav and I would be starting transition with meetings in China"

And then from Brodie, the main man, who will be President of AIESEC International

"Tomorrow morning I head out to Oxford for a leadership/change/spiritual type retreat. It's facilitated by Peter Senge and a Hindu guru......."

I'm looking forward to writing emails like this in one years time......

Congratulations Amelia Tandy, one of my best friends from Australia, who has just been matched to work for Greenpeace HQ in Amsterdam!

Mils and Mazzy together in the 'Dam will be a happy-happy combination to be reckoned with.

For a marine biologist with an interest in environmental conservation, I think Amelia has hooked herself up a pretty awesome job. Australia day in Rotterdam next year will definitely be an event not to be missed......

I was actually in this underwater paradise two weeks ago, and took this very photo....



Or maybe it was Thea who took it.....



I know what you're saying - yeah, so maybe Thea was there, but were you? Yes I was, ye of little belief!



I'm telling you, the Red Sea is absolutely beyond belief. I had to swim about 5 metres from my deckchair on the sand to get this view. Undierwater cameras are most recomended.

"Show me a cultural relativist at 30,000 feet and I'll show you a hypocrite...If you are flying to an international congress of anthropologists or literary critics, the reason you will probably get there - the reason you don't plummet into a ploughed field - is that a lot of Western scientifically trained engineers have got their sums right."

- Richard Dawkins, one of the smartest people alive (and a great writer) in "The Devil's Chaplain"

(found on samizdata.net)

Tony Blair romped it home on Thursday in the UK elections,securing a third term in Parliament for probably the most influential left of centre politician in the world. Yes, left of centre. Despite the Iraq war and his cosying up to Bush, Blair is a lefty, no doubt about it. His problems as UK Prime Minister, and in losing credibility to the mainstream "left" have come on two fronts, in my opinion.

First, he HAD to join the US in Iraq. Any UK or Australian Prime Minister, from any part of the political spectrum, would always, 100 times out of 100, join the US into such a war. This is a complicated issue that maybe I should write another post on, but basically, unless the US invades Norway on grounds of racial superiority, Australia and the UK will be following behind, wherever they go. So, poor old Tony had to do what he did, even though I am fairly sure it wouldnt have syncronised very well with his overiding politics of internationalism, rule of law and international consensus building.

Second, he has modernised "progressive" politics in some essential ways. The world has changed a lot in the last 20 years, but in many countries, left of centre politics still remains essentially unreconstructed 1950's postwar socialism - with many aspects becoming more irrelevent as people become wealthier, more aspirational and more consumerist. Blair has kept the basic spirit of leftist politics alive, and demonstrated that it is a relevant, energetic, and popularly supported political position. However, he had to take some flack for his reforms, and he has. However, where Labour in the UK stands right now is, I am sure, where leftist politics in many western countries would aim to be in the mid term future.

In many ways, Blair in the UK has done for Labour and leftist politics what the Thatcher/Reagan revolution of the 80's did for conservatism - he has demonstrated that with the right reforms and better positioning, you can attract solid popular support to a previously marginalised political position.

If you have any doubts on this, read his election victory speech. He is, quite simply, kicking ass in a big way:

"And one final thing, which is that I've also learnt something about the
British people, that, whatever their difficulties and disagreements with us and
whatever issues and challenges that confront them, their values of fairness and
decency and opportunity for all and a belief that people should be able to get
on, on hard work and merit, not class or background - those values are the
values I believe in, the values our government will believe in. "

Wow. Here we all are slapping each other on the back for travelling to predictable business class travel locations and claiming nomad status when there's some guys in the Sahara desert carrying a big bag of Frankincense from Timbuktu who would beg to differ.

And here is Thea, doing something truly incredible - she's sick of the boring safe life of Egypt (hehehe) and is up and offing herself to Ethiopia. E-thi-o-peee-a. Man thats a whole new level of random country to be travelling to, and sounds amazing. The fact that she is getting paid a shitloadof cash to do it by a huge multinational just adds awesomeness to the mix.

Here's to you Thea, and your amazing future. You've never ceased to amaze me, and this time is no exception. Just incredible.

Oh man. Why, Allah, did you not reveal this magical, magical organisation to me earlier in the year.

"Jet Only" fly to a bunch of locations out of Brussels. For absurdly, horribly, disgustingly cheap prices. It is making me feel physically ill that I did not know about this service until now, and I'm sure Jen will be preparing a tearful injustice-weep when she reads it.

Jet Only fly Brussels - Cairo for 89 Euro.

89 Euro. God Frigging Dammit. That is one horribly cheap flight. Thats one beautiful, flowing piece of discount airline poetry. That makes Ryanair look like a bunch of monopolistic rip-off agents. That is a transcontinental flight for less than 100 Euro.

I can see some significant weekend trips to Egypt going down over the coming year. Mazzy? Anyone else in Europe up for it?