Russian Chicks, Mexican Grabs, and My LSAT

Well I composed a blog a few days ago on the topic of Russian chicks and another topic that I can't remember, now, but my computer, for about a week, now, has been resetting itself, [observe my convoluted, but proper, use of commas] and I lost EVERYTHING. I think it was a conspiracy between the intelligence agencies CURRENTLY monitoring all my activities, and vestiges of the Russian KGB, because even Microsoft Word, in which I'd placed a copy of the blog for spell checking, could not recover the document!

This is going to be a SUPER blog, because you will get photos of Russian pop stars, English lessons, photos of my flat, AND metaphysical musings about my life and the lives of the people I care about.

Let's do it -->

Lip-Locking Lolitas

Some of you might remember the sexually ambiguous Russian 1.5-hit wonders back in 2002/2003, known collectively as t.A.T.u. (sounds like "tattoo") who caused controversy (and high record sales) with their on and off-camera refusals to confirm or deny their status as a couple. They were most well-known for their single "All the Things She Said" (video featuring them in school girl uniforms making out in a shower), and I have to say that the new single from these post-Gorbachev lolitas, "All About Us" is a current fav of mine (in that simple EuroPop kind of way), and also demonstrates a sincere ability on the part of these youngsters to not just make steamy videos, but improve their English skills as well. In their newest single, they seem to be experimenting with pronoun usage:

"They say don't trust you, me, we, us."

It might sound like Lena and Yulia are uncertain of which pronoun is appropriate, but as a devoted semiotician, I think that what we are really seeing, here, is a profound commentary on shifting identities and the boundaries of "self."

I highly recommend the video, and not just because the guy in it is incredibly hot (but true to form as a Russian man, ends up being a TOTAL jerk...he also ends up dead, but I don't want to ruin the ending for ya!). If you want to read a blow by blow of what happens in the video, you can follow this link and check out the narrative by used Keith133 describing the video -- very funny (scroll down).

Squeeze Your Horn

Back in Kabul, Cate and I sometimes remarked (not with surprise, but more with bemusement) on the frequent crotch-grabbing and groin-adjusting that men would do (I find it to be more frequent in Cairo, actually...just for the record), a phenomenon named by a friend of Cate's as the "Mexican Grab" (off-colour nature of the term duly acknowledged). I realized, day before yesterday, when my taxi driver, embarrassed after attempting to make a U-Turn against traffic and driving up on the traffic divider (me shouting the 4 words of Arabic I know in every possible permutation to try to say SOMETHING of meaning), pulled out onto a nearly-empty (surprisingly empty) road, looked around, and honked his horn!

To distill the puzzling element of this story for the fatigued reader: HE HONKED HIS HORN AFTER SEEING THAT THERE WERE NO CARS ANYWHERE AROUND US.

It was at that moment that I realized that his horn honking was functionally equivalent to the Mexican Grab -- it's like the Mexican Grab on wheels! Don't get me wrong....many taxi drivers manage to execute the traditional Mexican Grab while driving, but I did realize that the same way that men hover around on street corners or bridges, or lean on their parked cars watching passersby and asserting their presence by grabbing their genitals, my taxi driver was marking out his space on the road with his unnecessary honk.

LSAT Tomorrow

Well my LSAT is tomorrow, and I just got an extremely sweet and encouraging call from Madame Wong. Despite the fact that in more than 30 practice tests over the past 4 years I have NEVER gotten a perfect score, she is highly convinced that I am going to "ace it," and I like the sound of that. My last practice test is done, I feel as prepared as I can be, and I'm looking forward to getting it done with. I don't want to focus on negative things, right now, like the fact that I visited the testing center (a hole of a place called AMIDEAST) and it was a chaotic nightmare (which was really just a warm up for the total incompetence I would face later in the day at AUC with regard to the THIRTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS they owe me).

I will say that I feel like I have a lot of things going for me on this exam, from studious practice, to good omens, to really smart ancestors watching over my shoulder (and hopefully whispering some correct answers to the games section in my ear!). I took a photo of my prep station (the table I have never sat for a single meal at in my flat), which I realized looks absurd because I'm so picky about the light that I actually sit with TWO lamps right next to each other on the table. An equally absurd (but not LSAT-related) photo that I'm including is of the six pair of shoes that are strewn about my living room. I was wondering why my apartment felt messy even though it's clean, and then I realized that it's because (in such a small flat) there are shoes EVERYWHERE! You can also see both pair of black thong sandals that I referred to in a previous post.

I promised some metaphysical stuff, which is simply that in the last 1-2 weeks, basically everyone I know has had amazing things happen to them in terms of their goals/future aspirations. I might actually have to limit my congratulatory shout-outs, at this point, because I could (thank God) fill my blog with the great things that are happening to the people that I love. You've already read about Masry's hiring in Poland, Curie's half-marathon training, Juicy's successes in her infectious disease studies, and Barbie's recent interview successes, and you throw in Shakira getting hired to tutor Ruby and it's really a lot of good news, recently!

New good news is Desi getting an interview and some positive replies on the american legal academia job market (there has to be a less clumsy way of saying that!), and Curie getting accepted into the epigenetics lab she has been drooling over for a couple years, now (you know she wants it if she's willing to leave the Nobel Prize winning lab she's in, now, to go there). I'm sure I'm forgetting other good news to report...but the point is that now is a good time for me and the people I love, and I think that's good news for my LSAT.

Quick note about Curie's new lab. I'll keep the identity of the lab anonymous, but I have included a photo just so that we can all engage in some collective suspicion over what exactly top scientists do except fret over what colours to use on their whiteboards. I'm sorry, but looking at this photo from her lab, I'm not sure if she's getting her PhD in biology, or her MFA in Primitive Art (it's very Mondrian meets Damian Hirsch!).

Guess that's it, for now. I'll try to report to my eager readers, tomorrow, how my LSAT went. Don't be sad if I end up saying that I didn't finish the first section and walked out...I did fine the first time :) lol...but let's hope Wong was Wight on this one.

VC

ScandaloUS Current Events

Not much time to write (with my LSAT in precisely one week!), but a few quick things you should be alerted to, if you are not already:

1. There is new Human Rights Watch report detailing prisoner abuse in Iraq (here is the summary, with a link to the full report). I feel like there's not a lot to say that hasn't already been said about this issue, but the persistent failure of certain conscentious military officials to get the attention of their superiors until they talk to HRW and the Senate (!) say a lot about the attentiveness, values, and hierarchy of our military system in the US. I also think that it's interesting that this report was not published in Arabic (it says a lot about who the audience is, and also who it is not!).

2. (related to 1 -- a theme, a Vield Chunk leitmotif?) The Department of Defense has blocked military officials who, as part of their work on the Able Danger project in 2000, identified at a very early date certain key terror suspects who later blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (and was forbidden to pass along the information to the FBI), and the Senate, who is conducting the hearing, is a little disappointed. The umbrella excuse of not wanting to publicly reveal key intel sources/findings has been used by the DoD to defend its position, but I'm wondering how that justifies not letting ANY testimony? It's not like the military officials/experts, once in the room, HAVE to answer EVERY question -- saying: "I cannot answer for reasons of national security" would be a lot better than not showing up at all. Thanks, DoD. (here is the NYTimes article, thanks to Hawk Barbie)

3. Interesting scandal brewing with Musharraf AND the Washington Post regarding? You guessed it! Musharraf's plat du jour -- the theme of his 2005 year -- RAPE! The WP published Mushu's comments about women using rape as an excuse to make money and get visas to go to North America, and (after being confronted by Canada but not, of course, the US) Musharraf claimed to be misquoted by the paper. In its defense, the Post then published online the entire 9 minute interview, unedited, in which Musharraf makes the comments. Oops. (check it out)

Quick congrats to the Juiciest Med Student in Brooklyn, who, as we knew all along, is destined to one day be one of the foremost infectious disease experts in NYC. As she put it in a recent email to me: "Can't you see me becoming an expert in HIV and working in a gay men's health clinic? It would be the one place where, as a doctor, I could wear Prada shoes and be appreciated for it." I couldn't agree more. She is intelligent, passionate, committed, and totally fab, and congrats to her for rocking her infectious disease exam last week!!

VC

Black Thongs for Chunks

I remember being in high school and seeing in a JCrew catalogue a pair of black thong sandals that I really wanted (along with, to my mother's dismay, about 10 nearly identical grey sweaters...and yes we lived in California). When my order came a few weeks later, I noticed that the thongs were missing from my box. Wong came for her weekly visit (2 hours to have pizza with mom in an LA suburb strip mall seemed like freedom, then -- god boarding school sucked!...then again, refer to Guantanamo rant, below, for more thoughts on freedom...), and asked me: "Chunk, honey" (she actually wouldn't call me that), "did you get your JCrew order? I think there was a mistake on the form, because it said you wanted to order a black thong..." "MOM! Not a thong like what you embarrassingly say in front of my friends is a must with certain pants and causes very little discomfort...a pair of black thong sandals!"

Well I got my thong sandals, not then, but about every year since then, and I just realized today that I have too many! I realized in the locker room at my uber-posh gym that I'd gone all the way from my house to the gym (which, ok, only involves a taxi ride, but there is that cat walk up the driveway and through the lobby to the elevators where EVERY chunk dreams of meeting his loitering Saudi prince!) wearing two UNMATCHING black thong sandals! I felt so dumb. Actually...I just realized that I was probably wearing them all day to school, too. God. You know, I noticed the girl sitting next to me in my "Ottoman Modernity" seminar looking at my foot, but I just assumed she was staring at my perfect toes or freakishly-large foot muscle (which I didn't know I had until Curie pointed it out to me!), but maybe it was my unmatching sandals!!

Oh well.

Ok before I sign off, three congrats to friends of mine here in Cairo and abroad...no, four:

1. Congrats and good luck to Curie on her half-marathon that she'll run in NYC Central Park very soon (I will likely space-out and have no clue what day it is when it actually happens, but this TOTALLY counts as a supportive shout-out, right?). She just did a test run two days ago and busted out the 13.1 miles at a pace of LESS THAN 8 minutes per mile, which means that she is able to stay incredibly fit whilst having a loving romantic relationship AND getting her PhD in molecular genetics (at least that's what it was simplified as, last year).

2. Congrats to Slim Masry for getting hired by an extremely prestigious international corporation (after MONTHS of interviews!) in their IT group, meaning that he will soon be leaving us in Egypt for greener (and gayer) pastures in Warsaw. He was so adorable the other day when he told me on the phone: "I asked them if I should get a furnished flat, and they told me that there is a store called Ikea." (check out the link -- it's to the Polish site! :) Good luck assembling your entire house with a SINGLE multi-purpose turnkey, baby!

3. Congrats to Hawk Barbie for her meticulous preparation and successful completion of one interview, last week, and good luck to her on her NEXT interview (this Friday?). We want her to take the second job and stay in NYC -- so everyone send her NYC vibes!!!

4. Congrats to my Cairene confidant(e), who shall henceforth be known only by her gym name: SHAKIRA. Shakira has just been hired to work with one of the most famous, and visually scandalous, pop stars in the Arab world (check out THIS BBC article for more info!), and tomorrow is her first day as her English coach. Bonne chance (or something in Spanish...Toro!).

Best to you all :)

VC

Guantanamo Bay

Don't TELL me it's not a conspiracy or something of a similar nature that when the NYTimes publishes a piece YESTERDAY on prisoners starving themselves in protest at Guantanamo Bay (for being illegally transported across borders, held in some cases for nearly FOUR YEARS without charges, and in conditions that one would harldy consider conducive to a satisfactory standard of living...at least not according to the ICRC!) that the piece debuts at the bottom of the international section, and that now, as I try to link to it in my blog, I can't find it AT ALL -- even in the NYTimes search engine (which sucks, anyway). If you do a search for the past 7 days using the term "Guantanamo" then you get two matches -- both about the Roberts hearing. Hmmm. Guess SOMEONE at the NYTimes got a phone call...

Fine, then. I'll reproduce the ENTIRE thing, right here...along with my comments. This is self-plagiarized from an email I sent out to some friends/family a few days ago. Enjoy (and feel free to comment!).

VC

**

Ok, I know we all read the NYTimes, and I should be more creative with my mass email sources, but I find this *highly* disturbing, and find it additionally regretful that the NYTimes considered two-day old headlines about business owners returning to New Orleans, as well as a story about the pastime of hunting in the US, to be more worthy of featured, large-font headlines on the main page than this article (which was tucked away at the bottom of the international section).

Don't we all feel a collective tremor of fear when we think about due process rights that are being violated every day, and automatically make the reciprocity argument in our heads: if we (meaning: the government officials of the country many people on this email list hold pay taxes to and receive passports from) can do this, then what can we expect can be done to us? For a country with some of the most advanced equal protection and due process safeguards of any justice system in the world (supposedly), I really am astonished, truly astonished, that this has gone on FOR YEARS. Imagine how outraged, broken, and (to repeat myself) angry you would be if you were in their shoes! It boggles the mind.

I haven't read something so disturbing about Guantanamo as this since the NYTimes did that article a few months ago about child detainees (like a boy who was captured at the end of 2001 at the age of 15 and is now 18).

To just continue my rant for one more sentence (or three) --> I think that this is absolutely criminal. Whoever has oversight responsibility for this (military, DoJ, Attorney General...I have no idea) is, in my opinion, criminally culpable. I wonder what would happen if congresspeople who claim to agree with opinions like mine were to to have a hunger strike on Capitol Hill? Wouldn't that be interesting...

Read on :)

Widespread Hunger Strike at Guantánamo

By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: September 18, 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 - A hunger strike at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has unsettled senior commanders there and produced the most serious challenge yet to the military's effort to manage the detention of hundreds of terrorism suspects, lawyers and officials say.

As many as 200 prisoners - more than a third of the camp - have refused food in recent weeks to protest conditions and prolonged confinement without trial, according to the accounts of lawyers who represent them. While military officials put the number of those participating at 105, they acknowledge that 20 of them, whose health and survival are being threatened, are being kept at the camp's hospital and fed through nasal tubes and sometimes given fluids intravenously.

The military authorities were so concerned about ending a previous strike this summer that they allowed the establishment of a six-member prisoners' grievance committee, lawyers said. The committee, a sharp departure from past practice in which camp authorities refused to cede any control or role to the detainees, was quickly ended, the lawyers say.

Maj. Jeffrey J. Weir, a spokesman at the base, said that the prisoners who are being fed at the hospital are generally not strapped to their beds and gurneys but are in handcuffs and leg restraints. A 21st prisoner at the hospital is voluntarily accepting liquid food.

Major Weir said the prisoners usually accept the nasal tubes passively because they know they will be restrained and fed forcibly if necessary. "We will not let them starve themselves to the point of causing harm to themselves," he said, describing the process as "assisted feeding" rather than force-feeding. On at least one occasion, he said, a prisoner was restrained and forcibly fed.

One law enforcement official who has been fully briefed on the events at Guantánamo said senior military officials had grown increasingly worried about their capability to control the situation. A senior military official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, described the situation as greatly troublesome for the camp's authorities and said they had tried several ways to end the hunger strike, without success.

The comments of the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, probably because their accounts conflict with the more positive descriptions in official military accounts, generally mirrored the statements of lawyers for the detainees, who have received their information from face-to-face interviews with their clients.

Clive Stafford Smith, a British lawyer for several of the detainees, said he was visiting some of his clients in August when the most recent strike began. He said that a detainee, Omar Deghayes, told him that the strike was largely to protest their long imprisonment without being charged with any crime as well as the conditions of their confinement.

He said that Mr. Deghayes, a Libyan who has lived in London, told him: "Look, I'm dying a slow death in this place as it is. I don't have any hope of fair treatment, so what have I got to lose?"

Mr. Stafford Smith said an earlier hunger strike ended on July 28 after the camp authorities agreed to improve conditions.

He said that one inmate, Shaker Aamer, negotiated the end to that hunger strike with a camp official he identified as Col. Michael Bumgarner, who said he had been authorized to address some of the prisoners' grievances. Mr. Stafford Smith, who represents Mr. Aamer, said his client told him that Colonel Bumgarner said he would ensure that the detainees would thereafter be treated "in accordance with the Geneva Accords." That included, Mr. Stafford Smith said, the establishment of the six-member committee to represent the prisoners in talks with the authorities. Such representative committees are called for in the Geneva Conventions, although they had not been formed at Guantánamo. The Bush administration has said that while the Guantánamo detainees are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, they are generally treated by its standards.

Mr. Stafford Smith said the committee only functioned for a few days before authorities disbanded it.

Major Weir disputed Mr. Stafford Smith's description of a prisoners' grievance committee. "There have been no meetings with detainees refusing to eat," he said in a written statement in response to a question about the existence of such a committee. He said that commanders and soldiers interact with the prisoners daily and that they are also made aware of prisoners' needs and complaints from representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross. He declined to elaborate further.

Mr. Stafford Smith said the current strike began after some detainees reported witnessing the abuse of a prisoner, Hisham Sliti, when he returned to his cell after an interrogation session. He said that Mr. Deghayes told him that he had also seen a guard throw Mr. Sliti's copy of the Koran onto a cell floor. The military has acknowledged that isolated incidents of abuse of the Koran have caused some unrest among detainees, but authorities said that they investigate any such reports and discipline any offenders.

Kristine Huskey, a lawyer with Shearman & Sterling in Washington who returned from visiting Guantánamo last week, said that three of the Kuwaitis she represents in federal court were among the hunger strikers. She said she could not discuss everything she learned because of an agreement with the military that lawyers may not disclose information from their visits until the authorities review their notes for classified information. Nonetheless, she said, "The situation in the camp itself is very bad," adding that the hunger strike was "far more widespread than the government is letting on."

She also said that the camp authorities seemed greatly harried as they tried to cope with the situation.

The comments by Mr. Stafford Smith and Ms. Huskey demonstrate the vast changes in the military's task since federal courts have become involved in cases involving detainees and ordered the military to allow defense lawyers to travel to Guantánamo. Before the advent of lawyer visits, the military had total control over information from Guantánamo. There is now general acknowledgment that there were hunger strikes in 2002 and 2003, but they were largely unknown at the time. The only parties who had solid information when the strikes were occurring were the military authorities and Red Cross officials, who had pledged not to reveal what they learned in their visits in exchange for continued access.

The discrepancy between the military's figures for participation in the strike and those of the lawyers may partly be explained by their using different definitions. Major Weir said a detainee was deemed to be on strike if he refused nine consecutive meals. Gitanjali Guiterrez, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York group that issued a recent report on hunger strikes at Guantánamo, said that more than 200 detainees have said they have participated in the strike, and that could mean they ate only some meals or consumed only beverages.

Ms. Huskey said that the government tried to prevent lawyers from her firm from visiting their clients in recent weeks. She said officials had to be pressed to allow the visits by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the Federal District Court in Washington in at least three telephone conferences.

Ms. Huskey and her colleagues filed a motion before Judge Kollar-Kotelly on Aug. 29 asking her to order the government to allow them to visit their clients at Guantánamo who they believed were involved in the hunger strike.

"The judge essentially said they weren't being accommodating enough, and she pressed them to explain why we couldn't go," Ms. Huskey said. "When they said they didn't know if our clients were involved in the hunger strike, she asked them to find out."

Ms. Huskey said that when the government lawyers later reported that three of the firm's clients were involved, Judge Kollar-Kotelly said the lawyers should at least be able to visit those detainees.

"The government then became more accommodating," she said.

Lyrics of the Day

...not to imply that I'll have lyrics everyday, or any other day...or that these lyrics are more brilliant or apropos to my life than any others. I just like these. Right now. Edited (to be mother and blog and VC-life appropriate) from the original, a song called "Stick-Up" by Kelis.

I've been loving you for years
I know that I was never clear
But I have my fear today
Cause I'm gonna say
What I gotta say
I don't wanna play the role
I'm busting through the door
Gonna take your heart for sure

Put your hands up in the air
It's a stick up
I'm gone take your heart from here
Now let's fix up
Put your hands in the air, in the air, in the air

I'm gonna play cards from here
And take this gamble,
Sure my words are gonna fumble
But this being hushed and humble
Ain’t got me nowhere
Sure I'm scared but my life's a dare
And baby you just got so much flare
We'd be the perfect pair
I'm gonna share my mind with you
You've been blinded by lies, my blue
I'm taking you, I'm taking you

Put your hands up in the air
It's a stick up
I'm gone take your heart from here
Now let's fix up
Put your hands in the air, in the air, in the air
In the air, in the air, in the air

You try to run I still get you
A whole nother meaning
Don't want your gold, want your soul
Continue heartbeating
Cause when I start squeezing that muscle
That's the trigger then I got you...

This is a robbery, and no one's gettin free
Til that man he comes for me
This is a robbery, and no one's gettin free
Til that man he comes for me

Put your hands up in the airIt's a stick up
I'm gone take your heart from here
Now let's fix up
Put your hands in the air, in the air, in the air
In the air, in the air, in the air

:)

VC

Cairene Mysteries & Clijsters Win + Equal Prize Money Rant

No hyperlinks because those more than anything else deter me from posting (it's hard with slow connections to find all the relevant links for you guys!), but two quick things:

CAIRENE MYSTERIES

This is probably the fourth time I've seen CNN footage of protests in Cairo that I was totally unaware were going on and have no idea where/when they could have possibly occurred. In response to Mubarak's landslide 88.6% electoral win (with 23% turnout) in Egypt's "first open election," installing the incumbent President for a 5th consecutive 6-year term (30 years as President...doesn't that make you a king?), there were protests downtown today in Cairo, and I can see from the newscast on CNN that they were downtown in Tahrir Square, which is where my university is. The weird thing is that I went to AUC early this AM and was there all day, walking around, getting lunch with my friend Termite Queen (she likes the name!), and there were NO protests. So odd. How was I walking around Tahrir in total peace and quiet (read: the normal traffic and chaos of Cairo's most important traffic circle) only to return home and see on tv these MASSIVE protests? So odd.

Cairo's invisible protests (as I said this isn't the first time this has happened) shall be added to a growing number of Cairene oddities (mysterious phenomena, myths, etc.). Two more are: the myth of horrible late afternoon traffic during Ramadan, and the myth of 6th October bridge's fantasticness.

Now, as some of you may know, we have a yearly holy month in Islamic countries that I'll talk more about when it comes this October, called Ramadan. The most visible difference between Ramadan and other months is that during Ramadan, people fast between sunrise and sunset, and break-fast (iftar) at sunset. The MYTH in all this is that you really shouldn't go outside in the hours after noon because the traffic is awful as people struggle to get home for iftar. Now, I don't know if this is a self-perpetuating myth, where, since everyone listens to the advice and stays home, no one is on the street to see that they aren't that busy, but they aren't! Last year I totally ignored this rule, and my only observation about Cairene traffic changes is that in the few MINUTES before iftar, it's really dangerous to be on the road because people are speeding like CRAZY to be at the dinner table in time for the call to prayer and the break-fast. The roads at that time are almost empty, though, and it's more about speeding drivers than traffic.

Myth number two is that the 6th October bridge (maybe later I'll update with a map or something), that connects the Zamalek/Gezirah island in the middle of the Nile to downtown on the Eastern Bank (and which then continues as a freeway north) is the best thing since sliced bread (or, to make a gratuitous pharaonic reference: the best thing since embalming fluid). As Desi can confirm, I have this odd curse that, no matter where I am in Cairo, every taxi driver I encounter has the uncontrollable urge to drive me on the 6th October bridge. This has actually been witnessed by Desi, and it is my daily annoyance when I go to school. Part of this is a fear of traffic on other bridges, which leads many taxi drivers to drive on an unimaginable convoluted path that is 5 times as long (and therefore wastes more gas and doesn't save any time in the end) in order to get to a bridge that has only slightly less traffic than other bridges (to the untrained American eye, it would all look like gridlock), but part of it is totally inexplicable...drivers taking me on 6th October when it is not in any way a logical alternative to our route. In any case, I want to just say for all the world to hear that 6th October bridge is not "all that," and I have had probably a dozen drivers, now, express surprise when, after I insist that we do NOT take that bridge, but instead drive on the dreaded (because they think it's a traffic mess) Tahrir Street (not to be confused with Tahrir Square, of protest fame) and see that it has the same amount of traffic, but less stops, and is SO MUCH MORE DIRECT than making 15 turns to get on a bridge that is out of the way, inconvenient, and still congested.

TO SUMMARIZE:
* People protest in Cairo, but they are not seen or heard (I guess we knew that) -- even by people like me who are apparently too absorbed in their stuffed crust Margherita pizzas at Pizza Hut to see what's happening on the street immediately outside
* Traffic in the afternoon hours before iftar during Ramadan is not as bad as people think it is
* The 6th October bridge should be torn down and its concrete recycled to patch the chunks of building that fall on you when you walk around, here

CLIJSTERS WIN

Congrats to Kim Clijsters on finally winning a major final (in her 5th try), by defeating Mary Pierce to capture the US Open title just a few hours ago. I think Kim has amazing maturity and perspective (she's almost ethereal at times), and minus the PR blunder of her father criticizing my EVEN MORE favourite player (also Belgian), Justine Henin-Hardenne, has been an extremely positive sports icon.

On to prize money --> the winner gets a check for $1.1 million dollars. Nice, right? Plus there is a promotional campaign to encourage the tour-tattered players to play the summer lead-up events to the Open whereby the best performer in a series of US Open warmup tournaments is offered double the prize money of whatever they get when the Open starts. Kim also won that, which means that by winning the US Open, she collected, for a single tennis tournament, a paycheck of $2.2 million dollars. VERY NICE. The historic thing (which I was glad they announced at the ceremony, because I think it's important) is that this is the biggest single prize ever awarded to a female athlete. So she blew it in her first 4 majors, but when she won, WOW did she win!

This brings me to equal pay for equal work, and continuing debates over the few remaining tournaments that do not offer equal prize money for men and women, and the ongoing debate over competitiveness in the women's game and the length of matches men and women play.

To breakdown the argument in favour of paying men more, people argue two things: first, that in major tournaments, men play best of 5 set matches, and women play best of 3, so men are playing more, and should be paid more (equal pay for equal work); second, it is argued that the men's game is so much more competitive than the women's (wherein many of the top players coast through the early rounds of tournaments, spending about 30% as much time on court as the men do) even if the men and women are playing the same number of sets -- another variation of the equal pay for equal work argument.

These arguments suck for obvious reasons, but I'll tell you explicitly why. First, as we glean from the logic of the competitiveness argument just discussed, the "work" you put-in on the court can't be measured (if at all) by the number of sets you play; if Roger Federer breezes through three sets against Lleyton Hewitt and Sania Mirza spends longer on court to win in two against someone else, then how does the equal pay for equal work argument apply, there? It's ridiculous to even try to quantify effort in that way. Second, and this is my GENIUS (not) realization from the other day, the competitiveness argument should really be used to justify equal pay, not fight against it. One of the reasons that women's tennis is (some would say) less competitive than men's is that women were either barred (for social/cultural reasons) from playing (and still are), or were paid so little that it was not a viable income path. Only when sponsors started putting Anna Kournikova in smaller and smaller dresses did it make it incredibly lucrative to be the #4 ranked player in the world (WHICH SHE WAS), and I don't think that commercial endorsements and modeling contracts (which have, some argue, contributed to the very tragic disordered eating and physical injuries sustained by certain former-top 10 players, as well as the exclusion of other less traditionally-attractive world number one players from earning as much as their lower-ranked bombshell cohorts) should necessarily be the way women get paid as much as men as professional athletes. The more the sport plays, the more women will join, and the more competitive it will become. Womens tennis is very competitive DESPITE a history of gross discrimination (when you hear how little women like Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova made in their dominant primes, it's really unbelievable), and will only get more and more competitive as women are encouraged by equal pay campaigns to participate in the sport.

Sleepy :)

VC

Furious, Homeless Chunk

Well after leaving my beloved Millennium Hotel in Sharjah for the atrocious and disgusting fly-covered festering pile of elephant dump called the Four Points Sheraton in Dubai (which lured me in by its promises of wireless internet in every room, and a mere 400m walk to my favourite shopping center, the BurJuman Centre), I have now spent about 24 hours chasing my tail, trying to figure out how to economize, be happy, be productive etc.

After a total customer service train wreck yesterday at the Four Points (which involved an internet card, me sitting by the phone for an hour, and which culimated today in the ENTIRE network going down the for the ENTIRE day -- while the engineer prays -- and me being sent to a CLSOED internet cafe to try to make a reservation at a new hotel), I've decided to just grunt and bare it (is that the expression? or is it "grin" and bare it?)...anyway I'm grunting, but bearing it. If I weren't a total freak about privacy (mp3 dance time) and not inconveniencing people, then I'd stay with my friend in Cairo's cousin here in Dubai (who I tried to see last time I was here but who was sick).

I just HATE feeling like the 4stars I'm paying for are only worthy of about 2.5 (and twice the price), and I also have VERY little tollerance for anything but good 5star service, which is kind of a problem (I know it's bad to be that picky and reliant on luxury). This is what I've decided, having stayed in places of widely varied quality across many different cultures and continents:

* Bead and breakfasts/guesthouses sound ghetto but normally have excellent comfort and customer service, and are priced at the rate of a 2 star hotel but are seriously good options (and very worth the money)

* A clean hostel or 2 star hotel is IDENTICAL (I cannot stress this enough) in terms of room quality and ammenities (tv, internet, bathroom etc.) to most crap 4 star hotels, and are only lacking things like bad hair salons, ugly gift shops, tiny pools and dirty gyms, and bogus business centers that in their 4 star competitors are not something you care about anyway (ESPECIALLY not their plethora of "international" restaurants and inedible cuisine, which in Dubai and I'm sure many other places become late night brothels). My opinion is that the "extras" that move you along the spectrum from 2-4 stars are usually not worth it (and are mostly useless and for show) until you hit the 5 star level where the restaurants are good, the shops excellent, and the services ACTUALLY things you can and want to use.

* IN SUM: Go 5 star/luxury and get a good deal, and really enjoy all that you should in a nice hotel experience OR go for a huesthouse or the CLEANEST and MOST EFFICIENT 2 star/3 star DEAL you can find. There is no such thing as a 4 star hotel -- only over-priced 2/3 stars with poorly-functioning ammenities.

SPECIAL NOTE: Every Sheraton, in every country, sucks. From my prom night in a Sheraton Embassy Suites, to my time in a Sheraton in the hills outside Zurich, to my current 4 points (like 4 daggers stabbing at my already fragile sanity), they have ALWAYS been overpriced, underfunctioning, and totally ghetto (it's a whole Starwood conspiracy for people who work in one bad hotel to travel cheaply and get bad service in another of the same bad hotel chain in some other country...in my opinion, the rates they pay of like $15/night with Starwood points are what EVERYONE should pay, because Sheratons are TOTAL CRAP).

Wow this actually makes me feel better.

I also think that I might be fixating on changing hotels out of displaced anxiety over the work I need to do (Arabic and paper writing) over the next 4 days, as well as anxiety over finances.

I will blog tonight with more info -- hopefully focused on all the stuff that I accomplished since the afternoon (starting by going to the gym to work out some of this anxiety!).

VC

I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up

Not really, and my apologies for not blogging sooner...Herat, Pakistan, my last days in Kabul...you'll get all that.

At the moment, I'm in Sharjah, and unable to leave my hotel (even with my checkout time extended to 2PM...40 minutes from now).

I'm simply too happy with my tv, food, VIEW...I need to hybernate 5-star for a few days (which given all the studying I have to do, as well as how much I don't want to waste all my money on hotels, will be impossible).

Expext more from me soon, and it's good to be back :)

VC