A Different Drummer

It felt really nice getting this ticket in the mail today:



I havent been home since I first left Australia, just under 2 1/2 years ago. It will be good to be home, if only for a fleeting Christmas break.

Rolling Stone magazine's Matt Taibbi has some great observations in this long piece dealing with his experience of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina - it's good for the world that some people are still writing with a bit of Hunter S. Thompsons energy and instinct. His account of cruising around in a boat with actor Sean Penn and historian Douglas Brinkley is really good, but his general observations throughout of the chaos, and what is means for America, are brilliant:

"Any country that enjoys fighting and bitching as a recreation as much as America does will always be, in some way or another, walking along a knife's edge. We're a nation that spends its afternoons watching white trash throw chairs at each other on Jerry Springer, its drive time listening to the partisan rantings of this or that hysterical political demagogue, and its late-night hours composing feverish blog entries full of anonymous screeds and denunciations. All of this shit is harmless enough so long as the power comes on every morning, fresh milk makes it to the shelves, there's a dial tone and your front yard isn't underwater. But it becomes a problem when the magic grid goes down and suddenly there's no more machinery between you and whomever you happen to get off on hating."

The whole article is well worth a read.

I just stubled across this great series of drawings, done by a patient in a 1950's US government test looking at the effect of a decent dose of LSD on the way people behave. Ahh the glory days of science. This "patient" (obviously a fairly talented artist to begin with) is "scientifically" loaded up with acid, and is asked the draw portraits of the doctor who gave him the drug, over the 8 hour long trip he goes on.....Just check the whole thing out, but as a peek:

"First drawing is done 20 minutes after the first dose.....The subject of the experiment reports - 'Condition normal... no effect from the drug yet'. "



2.5 hours into the trip - "Upon completing the drawing the patient starts laughing, then becomes startled by something on the floor.":



2.45 hours into the trip - "Patient tries to climb into activity box, and is generally agitated- 'I am... everything is... changed... they're calling... your face... interwoven... who is...'......Patient mumbles inaudibly to a tune...."


Now that's science!....It seems like decent psychoactive drug testing, along with monument building, is one of those things we have collectively chickened out of as a civilisation. Bunch of sissies we are.....

This is a flat out masterpiece, one of the best things I have seen anywhere in a long long time. I'm not being sarcastic here, this is just pure genius from the one and only Zefrank.........

For all those years you have been waiting for "the premier online repository for pictures of dogs in bee costumes" to come online, celebrate! Beedogs has arrived, and it is chock-a-block loaded with pictures of dogs dressed in bee costumes......
(via BoingBoing)

I'm finishing my India time as innapropriately as possible - a dinner, alone, in an expensive upper class Chinese restaurant - laptop on table and all. In one of the worlds most crowded, exciting, cheap, deliciously fooded countries, a lonely expensive Chinese dinner sounds a bit strange - but I promise, theres a reason to it all....

I have been getting Egypt flashbacks all throughout these three weeks in India - the crowds and the noise, the pollution and the chaotic traffic, the incredible cheapness of everything, the confronting poverty, the enthusiasm and vibrancy of street life - but I think, in this Chinese restaurant, I am feeling it the most.

I am staying in a Youth Hostel in an area called Chanakya Puri, which seems to be the most affluent of Delhi's suburbs. Big wide tree lined streets, filled with shiny new Landcruisers being constantly washed and polished by the doormen of each massive villa. I could hit the US Embassy with a stones throw from my bedroom window, but I wouldnt want to try it, because the US embassy here is one fortified bad boy of a building - even more heavily guarded and walled/fenced/protected by a "Star Wars" style missile defense system than the US Embassy in Cairo, which I would have imagined to be under much more of a threat.

Anyhow, Chanakya Puri looks to be home to cashed up expats, Embassies and ambassadors houses, and the rich, internationally mobile minority of Delhi's population. In short, it looks and feels like a photocopy of Maadi, where I spent most of my time in Cairo. And the Chinese restaurant here is frighteningly identical to its Maadi counterpart.

Lets run thought the checklist. Locals running the place looking a bit silly dressed up in "traditional" Chinese clothing? Check. Neither Egypt nor India seem to have a large enough Chinese population to adequately staff their restaurants. That, however, is no excuse for Indians or Egyptians to hang plastic Samurai swords from the belts of their crappy white judo uniform pants.

Most prominent external visual advertising being that the place sells "Beer and Whisky"? Check. It seems that in the less alcoholic countries, Chinese restaurants are proud to flaunt their devious booze selling ways.

"Authentic" Chinese interior design let down by plastering of local religious icons over the walls? Check. When you go to all the trouble of buying the red paper lanterns, dragon statues and giant smiling buddha decor, why bust it all up by hanging posters of Mecca, scrolls of Koranic script or paintings of Ganesh or Krishna over the place. It just messes with the continuity, although it does add a sweet civilisational meeting place feeling (which I doubt was the intention).

Now, lets go through the clientele, table by table.

- Older English/American/White Expat workers? Check. Making stupid unnessecary requests of the waiters? Check ("What! Your mean you cant make me a plate of chips/grits/bacon sandwich/succotash?").

- Travelling Asian businessmen, looking a bit lost and confused, but happy to eating something vaguely familiar? Check. Getting surpised by the fact that no-one in the whole place understands Mandarin? Check.

- Rich local businessmen, ordering spring rolls, sweet and sour chicken, and ice cream for dessert? Check. Have they ordered/bought their own bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label to their table? Check.

- Teenage kids of the local moneyed families, dressed to impress? Check. Less interested in the food than in frantically typing away text messages on their top of the line mobile phones? Check.

And then, providing the consistency of the observer, there is me, dining away at both places. For the same reasons too - after a while, even the most diverse, delicious local food can become a bit tiring. I've eaten plenty of wonderful Indian food over the last three weeks, but after a while, you need to go back to something familiar. You also get tired of eating from street stalls, and the inevitable gastrointestinal consequences that follow.

So, Chinese predictability and reliability it is. Having spent the last few days in Goa, the food has been incredible - tons of wonderful fresh fish, grilled and curried to perfection, and the traditional Goan "vindaloo" dish, which is incredible, and completely misunderstood by the "Vindaloo" served up in western countries, where Vindaloo is basically nothing more than the code word for "really hot".

I have plenty to write about the rest of India, but it will have to wait for another time. My chicken sweetcorn soup has just arrived, and I'm sure that typing while eating would offend my Chinese hosts.

After the congress finished, we went on the obligatory visit to the Taj Mahal, just a couple of kilometres away from the conference site. I must admit now, to my shame, that I almost didnt go. I was so exhausted and tired, and the prospect of a day just lazing about in the wonderful conference site (an ass kicking 5 star Indian hotel, far and away the best place I have ever stayed) was pretty attractive to me. Line up a few beers by the swimming pool, grab that wonderful book I have been reading ("A Devils Chaplain", by Richard Dawkins, just read it), and enjoy. Besides, I thought, I have seen pictures of the Taj Mahal all my life, I have seen it from a distance here, is there really much more to it than that? I had fallen for the old "Pyramids Logic" - there really is nothing much special about the Pyramids from a distance of 10 metres that isnt special from 10 kilometres away. Honestly, they are amazing, but they don't really improve with proximity. Well, luckily, I didnt fall for this logic here - I quickly gave myslef a reality slap - "Tom, you are less than 5 kilometres from the Taj Mahal - if you don't go, you will be cursed for life". So I went.

In short, the Taj Mahal is incredibly, incredibly more amazing when seen in the flesh, up close, than in photos or from a distance. The incredible intricacy and detail of the Koranic script embedded across the walls and entrance, of the beautiful jewelled flowers set into the wall, of the amazing interior - all these things really dont come across in a postcard.

We don't build them like this anymore, for whatever reason. We've really given up on building incredible things, especially incredible monuments, shrines and temples. I'm not religious, in fact I'm pretty certain that religion is an actively negative force in our world today - but credit where it is due, it seems to be that religious belief played a big role in the creation of some of the worlds most beautiful things. Why can't we secular humanists build grand wonderful things? I guess, firstly, self aggrandisement has gone out of fashion in most places that have the money and cultural worth to build these kind of things. Most of these big beautiful creations come from an age when absolute monarchs and rulers built or ruled over hugely prosperous societies and civilisations, and these rulers built monuments, essentially to themselves. This kind of self worship might still be possible in Zimbabwe or North Korea, but in most other countries few leaders, business or social, have the guts to pay tribute to themselves so openly, and at such a price.

Materials like marble, jade, sandstone, granite etc have also been long out of use - and I wonder if we have actually lost or forgotten some of the knowledge in how to work with them in such big ways. Obviously steel, concrete or glass are more practical, cheaper, and more available - but lets be honest, they look pretty average 99% of the time. If I think of the most beautiful modern buildings, none of them lay a hand on the Taj Mahal. And although skyscrapers achieve sizes never reached by old school momument and wonder builders, they certainly lack the permanency and "solid" sense of eternity of the pyramids. I am no structural engineer, but I am pretty sure that the two 747's that took out the World Trade Centre buildings would hadrly have put a dent into the pyramids.

Wonders of our modern world are more often achievements than contstructions. Human beings driving around the moon on a golf cart is, to me, as impressive as and of the ancient wonders, and the fact that I type this while on the internet, wireless, on my laptop, in a small cafe in Delhi, is a testament to civilisation in itself.

There is still hope. We still have rich, religious leaders who have the capacity to get cracking on some truly amazing modern wonders. Some of the most religious people in the world are also currently the richest, and are conveniently the inheritors of 1500 years of wonderful architectural, cultural and aesthetic traditions. Yes, Arabs, I am looking at you. How about a new mosque to rival the greats of Istanbul, Cairo, Rabat, Delhi? I remember a friend in Cairo telling me that the modern, Saudi interpretation of Islam is that a mosque does not need to be beautiful, in fact, the more beautiful it is, the less attention is paid to the serious business of prayer. Fuck that. Build a big mosque, sissies. Prove to us you are still worthy of the great civilisation builders before you. I guarantee, Saladin, Sulieman the Magnificent, Mehmet the Conqueror and all those other great Arab rulers of the past would be in full support. And given that your religious buddies the Taleban destroyed one of the worlds great wonders just a few years ago, I believe you have extra bad civilisational karma to correct. Get cracking.

I suppose Mecca counts for something. Under Saudi custodianship, Mecca has been built up into a true wonder of the world. At full capacity, the complex can hold something like two million pilgrims, and during the Hajj, few places in the world look as incredible. Mecca did not previously look like this - it has been spiffed up and beautified by the Saudis to a huge degree. But two problems remain - first, interested onlookers aren't allowed within 200 kilometres of the place, to the shame of all Muslims, and second, the fundamentals of the structure were still built by old timey Mosque architects from a previous age. For the Arabs to represent themselves in the Modern Wonders challenge, they will need to make something all new, and something that I can at least have the privelege of viewing from a distant hilltop.

And what about our Catholic friends? Pope Jean Paul's life insurance payout must have filled up the vatican bank acocunt, and I'm sure that already had plenty of spare cash lying around. How about a new cathedral, one that really stuns the world into respecting your *dying* religion. It might even attract some new converts, especially in the third world where the poor and needy are always impressed by these kind of things. It could be a final desperate gamble, a last roll of the dice for a desperate Church searching for new admirers. Even I would clap and cheer and pay a visit to the Vatican at the prospect of a new wonder there.

We secular humanists have a role to play as well. We are far too humble about our achievements as a civilisation of objective realists. After all, we can and should take credit for almost all modern scientific achievement, the Renaissance, classical liberalism, democracy, popular culture, civil rights and the liberation of our women. All of these things were opposed in one way or another by organised religion, but the strength of our civilisation prevailed. Lets celebrate, and build something for the ages. Lets create a new island in the centre of the Atlantic, made entirely of some precious metal made precious only by our modern scientific achievements. Beryllium or Titanium would do the trick. On the island, lets build a vast silicon pyramid, totally transpearant, with a nuclear engine inside powerful enough to launch to pyramid into space once each month, travel to the moon, land, mine the moon for uranium, and return, precision guided, to its island a couple of days later.

Anyhow, this Taj Mahal topic got a bit hijacked. I guess my point is that we are missing out on something big if we cease in the tradition of Wonder building that has lasted for the past four thousand years. I pledge to everyone that once I have earned my first billion, five hundred million of it will go towards the construction of a great new wonder - and you are all welcome to join me.

So finally, on holiday in India, I had some time to write. I'm going to post a few of the things over the next few days. First up, thoughts in International Congress 2005

International Congress in Agra

Well, that was a busy one. I've said it a few times already this year, and I will probably say it again in the next few months, but I really think this was one of the busiest and most professionally intense things I have ever worked on. Going to International Congress as a delegate is great - lots of great people to meet, new and old friends to spend time with, some good sessions, and the ability to do whatever you really want - if you decide the best use of your time is to sit on some steps for a couple of hours talking about what is going on in Bosnia, Togo or Russia, then do it, with one of the many Bosnians, Togo'ans and Russians that are around you. International Congress as one of the team who are running the whole thing is a whole different experience.

I am working on the External Relations team for AIESEC International, which means we look after all of AIESEC International's external partners, and create new partnerships. At International Congress, this means looking after all the external guests of the conference. Sounds easy. Most of our guests at the conference were global management level - global vice presidents, directors and some "Chief..." level people (CEO, CFO etc...). When one of these people attends our conferences, it is a big investment by the organisation sending them - their time is not cheap. So we need to make sure that they are occupied and entertained for pretty much every waking minute that they are there. This would be easy if it was a one on one thing - you look after him, I'll look after her, style. But we had something like 50 of these guests, and there was only really 4 of us doing the looking after. So at any one time, I would be making sure that 6 or 8 different Extremely Important People were in the right place with the right people. In a big conference site, with something like 600 people all over the place, and the horror of No Mobile Phone (such primitivity - how is it possible?) - this whole logistical challenge became a read headache at times. Throw in the general principle of chaos and uncertainty that surrounds anything that you work hard enough on, and at times it felt, for the first time in my life, like I really just wasnt up to the task at hand.

My defining memory from all this was right in the middle of the conference, on Day 5, when all the guests I was responsible for were on the site and all doing things. Random things had gone wrong, some people hadnt shown up to the meetings they were supposed to have, different people were requesting different things, everyone I needed to speak to couldn't be found, and I needed to be in about twelve places at the same time. I was rushing down a hallway crunching through all the things I needed to do in my head, when I just stopped, and wondered, "Where am I walking to?". This brief moment of questioning why was I indeed walking down this particular hallway led to a whole meltdown of questioning - what am I doing, right now, what is the absolute next individual thing I have to do, what is my name, where am I? What the hell am I doing here, man?!

In the middle of the meltdown one of my friends from Egypt walked past me and said hello - I had totally lost all perspective on where I was and what was going on, time and space had totally eluded me, and I think this hello from a familiar face helped me to rebuild. But for a second there, I think my brain just decided to restart in order to clear things up a little. I've never managed to flick the overload button on my brain before, and once I got started again, with much more clarity and level headedness, I wondered whether this was a good or a bad thing. Anyhow, it all worked out in the end, I kicked ass at everything I was supposed to do at the conference, and all is cool.