Hingis Article

One of the few good articles I've read on her (don't get too excited -- it's still tennis journalism). From the Telegraph.

It's very interesting at the end when she says she appreciates what her mother did to her, not what she did for her.

I've always loved (and perhaps been a bit horrified by) her mother's naming her after Martina Navratilova. Back when her mother and Navratilova were both tennis players in communist Czechoslovakia, Martina was ranked high enough that she was the one who got to leave the country to play -- she was the one who defected to the United States. Hingis's mother was stuck on the wrong side of the Cold War. As the article rightly points out, it's some kind of mother who has a daughter and names her after the one who made it out, because if she wasn't good enough to get out of Czechoslovakia, her daughter would be. And she was.

VC

More on Vultures

We had to write something for class today (just 150 words) on something law-related that we considered unjust. Since it was on my mind I just whipped-out the following (nothing brilliant or insightful, but I think this is an interesting and relevant topic to all of us):

Despite all the attention paid to the June 2005 announcement by the G8 that $40 billion in debt would be written-off for 18 of the world’s poorest countries, very little attention has been paid to the vulture funds that swooped into US and British courts to successfully enforce loan repayment agreements that, in many cases, exceed in interest and other penalties the total amount of debt forgiven to many countries in the first place. The most recent example is the 15 February British High Court ruling against Zambia to enforce collection by one such fund headquartered in the British Virgin Islands. Zambia borrowed $15 million from Romania in 1979 to finance the Zambian purchase of Romanian agricultural machinery. Over the next 20 years, interests and penalties accrued such that Zambia’s debt exceeded $40 million. Expecting Zambia to default and looking to recover at least some of its investment, Romania sold its claim to a vulture fund for $4 million in 1999 at pennies to the dollar, and that fund then turned around, in light of Zambia’s projected debt forgiveness under the G8 scheme, and sued to enforce the loan agreement with penalties for more than $52 million. The vulture fund won its case last week (although it appears that it will not get quite as much as it was hoping). This is not a new phenomenon, however, and it is one that is consistently upheld by US federal courts. In summary judgment after summary judgment, US courts routinely find such contracts enforceable. In the 2000 case Elliott Associates, L.P. v. Banco de la Nacion, 194 F.R.D. 116 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), vulture fund mogul Paul Singer (who also happens to be the biggest contributor to George Bush and Rudy Giuliani in New York City) won summary judgment against Peru and its national bank for more than $58 million on debt his fund purchased just four years prior from Peru’s Swiss lender for $11 million; in its summery judgment, the Southern District Court of New York not only found the contract for the debt transfer enforceable, but said even Peru’s claims that the vulture fund acted in bad faith “lack[ed] merit.”

VC

Giuliani Candidacy

As if there weren't enough things that would make him unelectable, turns out he's funded by vultures.

Vulture Funds

Check out this interesting article from the BBC on vulture funds.

Then check out this update from two days ago re: the response to the article.

VC

Kite Runner

I know everyone has read it, but I just can't.

I bought it back when I was still in Egypt (I actually probably bought it more than a year ago), and I still can't read it.

There have been only a few experiences in my life as rich and dense as my summer in Afghanistan. Taking an overnight bus alone from Skopje to Belgrade the summer after I graduated college and walking around Belgrade without a map or guidebook (left behind by accident in Macedonia) is one of the few times I can remember that can even compare in intensity to my time in Afghanistan.

I arrived in Belgrade early in the morning, before anything (even McDonald's) was open, had no money until the moneychangers opened, and it was pouring rain. When you are in a place you've never been, surrounded by a language you don't speak, and don't have any sort of guide to help sort out the information around you, it's like you are stumbling around blindly feeling for some indication of how the world around you is supposed to function and how you are supposed to fit into it (I think this is especially true in police states where there feeling that one could potentially be stopped or questioned according to an unknowable set of state rules threatens and lurks in the background). I slept in a subterranean crosswalk (the kind that goes under a busy avenue and has little shops and things) that seemed menacing and unsafe at first -- like the first time you walk in Central Park alone and pass under the bridge that looks like it might be a tunnel with thieves hidden in its darkness -- but over the next hour or so it came alive and totally transformed into a protecting and lively space. After I woke up and things began to open, I got money and bought the best yogurt parfait of my life (something I've only seen in the Serbian incarnation of the McDonald's menu), and walked all over the city. I entered buildings that I found visually appealing with total disregard for what they actually were and perhaps a small sense of mischief that I knew could be converted into naivete if I were to get into trouble for going somewhere I didn't belong. It's funny how easy it is to find yourself unable to distinguish a government building from an elementary school, or a research laboratory from a museum. I cat napped in a gorgeous park at what appeared to be the Serbian answer to Washington DC's mall (Belgrade has some great public spaces), and eventually made my way to the botanical gardens where I again napped under a light rain. I went to every orthodox church whose steeple caught my eye in the distance, and was even permitted to tour one that was closed to the public for renovation (when you're quiet, nonthreatening, earnest, and alone, people will let you in just about anywhere). I even went to the tennis center and asked if I could hit with someone on the red clay. Everyone was shocked, as I was wearing jeans and a pair of Prada sneakers, and unfortunately there was no one there to hit with me (although I am fairly certain that two of Serbia's top female professional players were the two girls that I met when I was there).

Anyway, back to Kite Runner. Afghanistan was so rich, to the point that it was overwhelming, that I don't want my experience with it -- which is fragile insofar as I still cannot articulate precisely its impression on me because its too big for me to fully process -- to be replaced by a literary image. I'm sure the book is excellent, but it's not something I'm ready for when my internal text on Afghanistan is still being revealed to me.

As I tried to read it before I went to bed tonight, I finally had to put it down because my mind started racing with my memories of Afghanistan. There are so many discrete moments of impact that all then run together. I was reading, yesterday, about language groups in Central Asia (it started with a wikipedia search on Zoroastrianism that snowballed into lots of reading about proto-Indo-Iranian peoples and the cultures and languages that sprung-forth from them), and there was a photo in the entry on Greater Khorasan of the mosque in Herat that brought back SO many memories, I could never write them all. It's unbelievable how crisply I remember not only the place, but my thoughts nearly every moment that I was there (and that's not remotely and exaggeration). I see the photo and remember not just the entry gate, or the pathway, or my seduction of the mullah on the stairs, but what I was thinking at each of those moments -- what they meant. The photo gets filled with my thoughts and experiences in a way that a book cannot be, because books are already deliberately filled with thoughts and experiences to a degree that they are usually rather surreal in their panoramic depiction of things.

I finally had to get out of bed and type this because I was so restless with thoughts of Afghanistan, ranging from the biggest and most abstract thoughts, to the smallest and most moment-specific ones (I keep reliving Sher trying to get to me from her branch on the tree and knocking against the hard cement at my feet).

To feel full and profoundly. To be saturated. The colours are beautiful but angst-ridden in their richness.

VC

OutLaws & Gay Vocab Lesson

I had to pass-on this hilarious email from the CLS OutLaws group in response to military recruitment this week at the law school,l in violation of Columbia's antidiscrimination policy (the law schools said "don't ask, don't tell" is discriminatory and refused to let the military recruit, the military got the Supreme Court to uphold its interpretation of the Solomon Amendment to say that not allowing the military on campus could lead to a cutting of federal funds to the university, which at Columbia is worth hundreds of millions and sustains the med school...now Yale is bringing a suit, since its the only ivy law school with a spine, and in the meantime the military is back on campus):

The Army is coming… And the navy… Airforce… Marines… it’s like Reichen but not as good looking or accepting of ‘our kind’. Yes JAG is recruiting on Campus this week. Outlaws we will be tabling and we have other events scheduled. Check the below for more information.

This week we have decided to use GAY SLANG… so if you see an underlined word then look it up at the end of the email (there is an index of terms) but don’t turn me into Mama Bear if you get offended… I’m just trying to Butter, Bake and Baste ya’ll… and avoid being retail... SNAP.

Hey Hey – Let’s Get Gaysted!!!
1: Upcoming Events At Columbia
2: Misc. Announcements/ Jobs/ Scholarshipsg

Upcoming Events
February 22^nd and 28^th – Tabling In The Lobby Of Jerome Green Hall.
Outlaws will have table for our circle we’ll have stickers and petition to sign for the school. We still need people to sign up for tabling on the days the military is here. It's just one hour and they'll be getting people to sign "Repeal the Ban" Petitions and a statement of support.
The available time slots are:
Thursday February 22 - 10:00-11:00, 1:00-2:00, 2:00-3:00
Wednesday February 28 - 110:00-11:00, 11:00-12:00, 1:30-2:30, 2:30-3:30, 3:30-4
Please have them email me at miruther@gmail.com to sign up.
So don’t be troll… sign up to join our table- you might meet an MSO. Either way it’s a sidewalk sale in the lobby of JG from 11am onward.

Wednesday February 28 at 12:20 pm in JG 104. Panel “Do Tell, Due Change, Due Justice: Former Service Members' Perspectives on 'Don't Ask Don't Tell.'"
Come hear former service members discuss their experiences of being in the military and gay. Lawyers from the Service Members Legal Defense Network will also be there to discuss the legal aspects of Don't Ask Don't Tell and their work representing service members kicked out of the military pursuant to the policy. There will be box lunches provided… Yum. We’re making pound cake for lunch.

Harvard Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Conference – March 2^nd to March 3^rd.
Columbia Outlaws Is Leading a contingent up to this conference (check your email for past messages on this) Be a road queen or get on the bus up to Boston. If you have questions email mrutherford@gmail.com.

Misc. Announcements/ Jobs/ Scholarships
Nothing this week…

This Week In OutLaws is sent out once a week. If you want to have something included in the email send it to Dorianberger@gmail.com by 5pm on Saturday for the following week.

Glossary:
Gaysted – a presumed heterosexual who does gay things when drunk. “Johnny got so gaysted at the party he stuck his hands down that 3L’s pants” Or “Dude I got so gaysted last night I can’t find my toothbrush”.

Cafeteria – a bar filled with many prospective mates.

Sidwalk Sale – A group of gays on the sidewalk after a gay bar closes “Suite at 4am has a crappy sidewalk sale. It’s a bad place to get Gaysted.”

Circle – Ones Gay Friends

Mama Bear – A Female Police Officer

Making Pound Cake – I’ll leave this to your imagination

MSO – Male Sex Object “That Outlaws Secretary is an MSO.... Love to see him at the sidewalk sale.”

Rough Trade – Street Hustler. “This summer I working for the Bronx Defenders helping rough trade stay away from Mama Bear.”

Retail - Whether or not a person works retail, it is a term to denote a lesser quality of gay man in terms of intellect and income potential. "Let's leave this party, everyone here is retail" or “NYU Law is strictly retail.”

Road Queen - Homosexual hitchhiker using prostitution to travel. “When going to the Harvard Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Conference we urge all OutLaws members to be road queens. Although you might have to make pound cake to get back to NYC.”

Butter, Bake, Baste- Offering to rub suntan lotion on sunbather, letting him get relaxed with the rubdown and sunning, and then ‘basting’ said sunbather. “I was fired by my law firm for trying to butter, bake and baste a number of clients.”

Wolf - An aggressive or masculine lesbian, the partner of a lamb. “That Wolf stole my lunch money.” Or “I saw that Wolf out with her Lamb at Henrietta Hudsons”

Manatee Crucifixion

On CNN's Anderson Cooper 360' they are doing a special on-location story about deforestation in the Brazilian rainforest (the location is not disclosed for security purposes), and they included a segment on the wildlife that is threatened by the deforestation process. I was surprised to find out that manatees are in the Brazilian rainforest, but apparently they are, and the one Anderson was feeding with a baby bottle (I think we should ALL think about what images are being used to manipulate our pathos when animal lovers deliberately liken animals to babies) had suffered from a nail being driven through one of its flippers (I guess the nail was floating in the water or something?).

Anyway, the manatee guy who was showing Anderson around showed the wound to the camera and then said: "He was basically crucified."

lol

I wonder if they now refer to all impalement injuries in med school as "crucifixion."

I wonder if we could follow the same logic to start referring to airplane take-offs as "resurrection."

VC

Law School

Since I feel like a lot of you might not really understand what I mean when I say that law school requires a straightforwardness that is impossible for me, I wanted to give you an example from today's Con Law class of what I mean. There are three keys in law school, but up until I got my exams back in January, I only understood the first one:

1. Do not be intellectually creative (THIS WILL BE PUNISHED -- it will look undisciplined and give the impression that you couldn't zero-in on the issue or couldn't apply the basic doctrine)

2. Express yourself in short declarative sentences. Do not use commas.

3. NEVER underestimate the degree to which the question you are being asked is unbelievably simple. In many cases (including the one I'm about to give you), the best answer stays so close to the initial question that it almost appears to create a tautology/circular response -- going beyond that tautology risks violating the creativity principle under point #1.

Ok so today in Con Law class (and this is a class in which the professor is actually NOT as straightforward as the professors in most of my other classes) the professor presented a hypothetical piece of legislation and then asked the class to decide whether or not it was constitutional.

The professor then said that the first question we had to answer was: "How would you go about determining whether or not this statute is constitutional?"

A student raised his hand and answered: "You would first have to test whether or not such an act is sanctioned by the Constitution."

I sat there a little puzzled at how stupid the answer was (the student is a 2L transfer, so you KNOW he did really well in his 1L classes in his original institution, and he talks a LOT in class), but then the professor said: "That is precisely correct."

I thought we were chasing our own tails, but apparently we were making progress.

In any case, now you know what I mean when I say that law school requires a straightforwardness that is totally beyond me.

VC

China on the Free Market

This is from the FAQ of the Chinese consulate in NYC. I think the irony is apparent:

9. I am far away from the Consulate General, how can I apply for the visa?

A: Applicants may entrust someone else (relative, friend or travel agent) to submit the application. The entrusted should appear in person.

Due to market competition of visa agents, it is improper for the Consulate General to provide any information or list of travel agents. Applicants are suggested to search the websites on the internet, such as http://www.yahoo.com, or http://www.google.com. Please be notice that the applicants should hold all responsibilities.

VC

BRITNEY LOVES SWITZERLAND

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLioP-kci-4

Addicted, Kelly Clarkson

(A new fave of mine)

It's like you're a drug
It's like you're a demon I can't face down
It's like I'm stuck
It's like I'm running from you all the time

And I know I let you have all the power
It's like the only company I seek is misery all around

It's like you're a leech
Sucking the life from me
It's like I can't breathe
Without you inside of me

And I know I let you have all the power
And I realize I'm never gonna quit you overtime

It's like I can't breathe
It's like I can't see anything
Nothing but you
I'm addicted to you

It's like I can't think
Without you interrupting me
In my thoughts, in my dreams
You've taken over me

It's like I'm not me
It's like I'm not me

It's like I'm lost
It's like I'm giving up slowly
It's like you're a ghost that's haunting me
Leave me alone

And I know these voices in my head are mine alone
And I know I'll never change my ways if I don't give you up now

Birthday Requests

1. Don't try to make plans with me. I'm not into birthdays, and I don't want to plan or be planned-into anything.

2. Don't hold your breath on Swissy. He is totally stressing about the fact that I told him I wanted him to have brunch with my closest friends in NYC on Sunday. There has been a protracted discussion about people, their limitations, and what we look for in others, even non-romantically. I said basically that I don't view people as entertainment and if I'm not around someone who challenges me and lets me challenge them then I'm not really interested, and that goes for boyfriends, friends, and family alike. Introspection terrifies him, and he likes Disneyland (I'm not sure much more needs to be said than that). Not much I can do about it, but I don't want to ignore a big red flag like that (like him always telling me that he doesn't want to talk about serious things) just to have a fun and breezy birthday. We may or may not see each other this weekend (we're supposed to think on it and whether we want to meet on Friday when he arrives).

Kind of funny the way plans change, since a French guy I know (of dubious character I guess I should add) offered to have a birthday dinner for me wherever I wanted and have me invite whoever I want, but I didn't turn it into anything because that would be weird and because I thought I'd be doing things with Swissy this weekend.

I'm off to a 50th birthday dinner and benefit for the founder of the organization Freedom to Marry. The ex who I went to Montreal with in August invited me, and I know the birthday guy as well, so it should be good.

VC

All in the Numbers: VC HEALTH UPDATE!

Just got back from the gym and I have GREAT NEWS! My diet and exercise plan totally worked exactly as planned and I actually lost 2 lbs. this past week. You probably saw my post, last night, with my graph and tables and everything. I think that probably the extra gym time compensated for the calories I went over from the 2 lbs/wk track. This just goes to show that you can eat an entire tin of cookies, have chocolate fondue with rice crispy treats and brownies (that was Saturday night), and a pizza and STILL get great results as long as all the little rewards are balanced by super healthy eating the rest of the week and a lot of exercise.

Don't worry, I won't be giving weekly updates. That would be a little excessive. I will be keeping track, though, and maybe I'll let you know in a month where I am. It's cool that if I lose another 2 lbs in the next week (or even just in the next 10 days) I'll be a full 10 lbs. lighter than I was the last time Swissy saw me. He doesn't care at all (we've actually talked about it) but I think it's neat.

On a sidenote, the place I totally lose weight the fastest is my neck. How useless is that?

VC

Double Gag

Gag 1: The Fox News coverage of Giulani's wife, here. "Sexy Judy Giuliani" Um, maybe Tyra's rant last week (I LOVE HER) has done more to change American standards of beauty than I thought was possible in 5 days, but is Judy REALLY "sexy"? I don't know what it is, but when I see this "sexy" photo I almost feel like if you turn them upside down the look similar -- I think there's some kind of symmetry between his huge forehead and her huge double chin that makes them look like mirror images.


















Gag 2: The original New York Post article from which Fox got its coverage actually has a photo of them KISSING. I want to slap her when she goes "I've always liked strong, macho men." Um...yeah...guys who are too selfish and stoic to address your emotional needs and allow you to avoid yourself by focusing on serving them are HOT (?). Liking a guy who can be a little aggressive at the right time is one thing, but saying you like "macho men" just makes me ill.

VC

PS: Yes I mis-spell her name intentionally ("Judi" and her "macho men" would just be WAY too much for me to not slap if I spelled her name like that), and yes Giuliani does only love her because she, too, has a lazy left eye.

BEST GUESSER EVER

It has AGAIN been proven that I'm the most ridiculous guesser ever to exist.

So you know how Swissy was surprising me with what hotel we were staying at for my birthday? Do you *also* remember that my FIRST guess was when I called the W Hotel in Times Square pretending to be him and the woman was like "are you SURE you made the reservation at the Times Square location?" but I didn't want to risk exposing my lie, so I didn't have her hunt around??

Anyway, he just admitted that I was right and it is the W, lol, although I don't know which one.

It's really cute how he was trying to make a game out of it where he gives me one clue each week ("I'm in a good mood this morning, so it's time for another clue!" he'll say) but his clues are SO deliberately unhelpful ("it's north of Battery Park and South of Central Park" and then the next week: "it's north of Battery Park and South of 58th Street"loooool).

I totally guessed on the first try!

I wonder if I could pick stocks...

VC

Drum Roll, Please

Ok well I'm just reaching the first assessment point of my diet/exercise regime. I've been tracking every calorie, monitoring my heart rate, and really planing a comprehensive workout and diet regimen. Of course, the basic principles never change: burn more than you eat and you lose weight. There is a lot more to it than that, though, when you're looking for healthy, sustainable weight loss.

As you can see from the tables below, a calculation based on my age, sex, height, weight, and general activity level indicates that I probably need about 2200 calories per day to maintain a steady weight. Since each pound represents 3500 calories, you need a deficit of about 500 calories per day to lose one pound a week, or 1000 per day to lose two pounds per week (the absolute max most people could hope to lose healthily). That means that to lose one pound per week my daily intake should be about 1700 calories, and to lose two pounds per week my daily intake should be about 1200 calories. My basic metabolic rate was calculated according to an activity level of 1-3 hours of vigorous exercise per week, so it's important to keep up at least that much activity at the gym to make the numbers accurate. The first table represents the daily intake of each consumption path, and the second table represents the cummulative caloric total of each path going through the week.

As the tables indicate, I started the week a little overly-ambitious and was limiting myself to 1000 calories per day. The day after I bottomed-out in the 800s I made it through the day with only 1200 calories, but by 1am that night was tired of spending ALL DAY thinking about food and decided to just get some cookies and not stress about it...12 English toffee crunch cookies and an extra 1560 calories later, I was pretty much not going to meet the 2 lbs/wk benchmark, which is
fine.

You can see in the graph of my intake levels over the week (the graph of the second table, above) where my major binge crossed me out of the 2 lbs/wk range and more towards 1.5 lbs/wk. I was exceptionally active, though, and had 5 hard workouts this week. It was also four weeks, yesterday, since I had a pizza, so I've finally had one...and it was GOOD :)

Tomorrow will be my weigh-in, so it will be interesting to see how much I've lost and see how accurate these calculations have been. When I weighed myself a week ago I was 6 lbs. less than my heaviest at the beginning of winter (let's call that number F, for fat lol), so now I should be at about F - 7.5.

I'll let you know where things end up tomorrow. I've also been keeping track of how many subway and bus rides I take (for more than a month, now!) and how much money I spend on *everything* (since 26 January), but I think this is enough numbers for one blog entry.

My goal for this next week is to keep up the working-out (although it will be tough) and not fall into the same pattern of eating way too little and then having a cookie meltdown. I'm fine where I ended up, consumption-wise, but I'd rather see myself get there on a straight line rather than one with a spike in the middle.

VC

You can See Swissy Right Now!

Sie haben eine MMS erhalten! Vous avez recu un MMS! Avete ricevuto un MMS! You have received a MMS!

(Yes the text message sent me this AM from Swisscom was written in 4 languages...Switzerland seriously cracks me up)

You can see the message Swissy sent me this morning from the ski slopes of Zermatt by following this link, entering the number +41[Swissy's number confidential -- he just asked me to remove it even though I have a readership of 5] in the first box and the ID 5d9zuf7a in the second box, then clicking on the blue button below.

OH NO! It won't work :( After I entered the info it gave a warning message that the MMS can only be viewed once before it is automatically destroyed. That is so Mission Impossible :(

Well I'll just give you a recap: Swissy is handsome and Zermatt is gorgeous, and Switzerland is a small country full of polyglots and lots of chocolate. You can click here for a 360 degree navigable panoramic from the summit of the Matterhorn (no, it's not just the only good ride at Disney other than Space Mountain) and you can even zoom in to view the other surrounding peaks.

VC

Swiss Men Really Are Hot

I don't want to post a link to the website because I don't want to be discovered to be blogging about this from some other website using a track-back feature, so I'll just say that I would encourage everyone to educate themselves in transitional justice and human rights by going to the website for the International Center for Transitional Justice and then going to the profile for Alexis Keller under the Board of Directors link for About the ICTJ.

Why are Swiss men so hot? It must be the mountain air.

VC

Old Europe Shows Backbone

Happily, two blows have been dealt to the US on the subject of the CIA's policy of extraordinary renditioning (I'm sure you've heard about it: you're kidnapped, duck-taped, given an enema, and shipped-off to a secret prison where you're tortured? One of the tools that is making the war on terror SO successful...).

You can see in this article that Germany has issued arrest warrants for 13 people involved in the arrest of a German Lebanese man (I saw him on television a while back and it was SO sad what happened -- basically he got in a fight with his wife and went to Macedonia to blow-off steam, which is really not that far from Germany, and while taking some personal time in the Balkans he was renditioned and tortured in Afghanistan for five months until dumped on a roadside in Albania -- check out the link for video footage of him talking about it).

In another case on the heels of the German case, Italy has decided to issue arrest warrants for both Italian and American personalities involved. Both Germany and Italy are looking to prosecute CIA agents. You can read about the German case in this article (it's my understanding that since the article was written Italy has decided to go forward with the arrests).

GO EUROPE!

VC

Must Read on Pakistani Drag TV Host

I have known about her and her show for a while, now (actually thanks to an interesting encounter between her mother and Desi) but I realized that this is something a lot of you who have no idea what's going on might find REALLY interesting.

Follow this link for an article written by the brother of Desi's ex (the ex who I met in Pakistan with the friend I developed a *minor* crush on) about the drag personality who is setting records in South Asian television with her late night talk show.

What's more: she's running for parliament! :)

The article is interesting not only for what she says about her character, but also for the comments that follow.

It's interesting to see the comments by British and American Pakistanis who are totally outraged and disgusted (with one of them talking about the loss of "real Pakistan," whatever that means, since it's existed all of 60 years) (see hayrulallah from the UK and Noor Malik from Atlanta).

There also one comment directed at the reference to the Indian side of Kashmir that's pretty outrageous (see Mahesh, from Virginia).

Someone (Hazari in Arizona) makes the REALLY twisted argument that she's disgusting because she leads people to misunderstand the REAL protections that Islam provides for REAL hermaphrodytes (apparently he doesn't see a difference between being both sexes at the same time, gender TBA, and being one sex but another gender).

READ IT! :)

Here's a Newsweek article about her (if you just can't get enough of the Begum).

VC

Iraq Audit

Here is the full pdf of the most recent audit report of the Special Investigator General for Iraq Reconstruction.

Surprisingly, the audit only encompassed 15 projects this quarter -- it actually only completed 8 audits -- the 15 refers merely to "project assessments," which in many cases include conclusions that they were not able to determine whether or not a project was being undertaken successfully (although they don't say why). That doesn't seem like a lot to me!

According to the report, spending on relief and reconstruction is basically totally complete (already contracted to different "bidders"), and of all that money given out to fund different projects, over 80% of it ($21 billion) has been spent already.

The result?

Well, this time last year the Special Investigator General announced that 2006 would be "the Year of Transition" (doesn't that sound very Maoist?). At that time, six goals were announced, none (ZERO) of which were achieved, according to the report (see page 4 of the report).

The report describes how the funds dried-up with huge amounts of money (tens of billions) being shifted out of health care and social development projects and into security projects (I'm not clear on what that means, but it sounds like Congress allocates our taxes to the fund, and the fund then pays for our military presence there??).

It describes how, with these funds diversions, electricity is below pre-war levels (in Baghdad it fell from 16-24 hrs/day before the war to 6.5 hrs/day now -- not even enough for a full work day), water funding has been cut by more than 50%, and the oil output that was intended to pay for the reconstruction "has yet to materialize." It also says that hospitals and primary healthcare centers were not reconstructed as a result of "poor management by the contractor" AND "weak oversight by the US government" -- a grand total of EIGHT have been completed thus far (8!).

Appendix F is really interesting because it has all the contracts set-out in a billable list that reminds me of the one we'd keep at our law firm and give to the client. In one entry the banking services consulting firm Bearing Point has one contract for $116 million and another for $32 million. Wow! One would think electricity would be required to have credit markets!...

The World Health Organization got less than $5 million.

A company called Parsons Global Services also did quite well (its contracts were *endless*), and from what I can tell it's a Halliburton-like middleman services provides (great position to be in!). I did research the Board of Directors and didn't see anything suspicious (ie: Mary Cheney and the Bush twins are not board members), but these are exactly the kinds of "pay us and we can do ANYTHING" companies that get nothing done and make tons of money with their inefficiency.

Another of the same is Fluoramec LLC (HUGE contracts), although I wasn't able to dig up anything on them. Their website basically just says "we do everything in Iraq" and has no info about the corporate governance.

Add to that list Perini Corporation (which is at least transparent about its governance), and (the weirdest one of all) MAC International FZE. MAC is the exclusive dealer of American autos in Iraq and netted close to $100 million in contracts from what I can see. That is about 20,000 hummers (they also sell Chevrolet, Cadillac, etc.). That is a LOT of car.

Siemens also did very well, but I won't criticize, since I rooted for Siemens for a long time when it was the only non-US corporation that was one of the top 5 largest in the world.

The report is long but mostly because of Appendix F. The disappointing stuff you can get through pretty quickly.

You're going to see this all over the news (I hope), but I wanted to provide one bit of context for something that's being thrown around with respect to refugee flows. When I originally saw the report on CNN they made the case that there were millions of Iraqi's fleeing the country while on the Eastern border hundreds of thousands of Iranians are pouring in. I think it's pretty irresponsible to not note that the 300,000 Iranians who have entered Iraq since 2003 are returnees -- likely the shi'i who fled the country under Saddam. They aren't random Iranians flooding the border; they are Iraqis refugees RETURNING to Iraq.

VC

Desi, The Return

Our 6 month not talking thing is over. He called and made a teary confession of the fact that he's totally in love with me and is confused by it because I'm not his usual type (rail thin and of foreign passport) and because I've made him dream of marriage, which he normally stands so vigilantly against.

I told him that I have had enough romantic drama this past year, what with all the back-and-forth between Rico Gross and Victor Valdes...I just don't have time to add more on top of the pile of men with bleeding hearts for this Chunk.

We decided to just go back to our friendship from before, except I'm going to try to reign-in my "prickly radar" and he's going to try to stop masturbating when we talk on the phone. Baby steps.

VC

Orientalist LLP

From the website of one of the top international law firms with a presence in the Middle East:

Weekends at the beach
Living and working in Dubai offers all the benefits of the Middle East, with none of the potential drawbacks. It's an Islamic society - but a very tolerant one. The city is modern, high-tech and uncongested and its beaches, climate, relaxed lifestyle and superb sporting facilities are all big attractions. You can also venture into the desert - as we did for a recent office party. The drive to our desert camp across the sand dunes was by land cruiser, with activities including camel rides, sandboarding and bellydancing!

VC Top Chef

I just made Rice Primavera!!!

Granted, it was from a box, but this is definitely my biggest cooking project so far.

It was kind of tricky, because they say to only use two cups of water, which is nothing compared to what you use when you make pasta (my only accomplishment beyond microwaved vegetables thus far), and then you have to cook it for 25 minutes until all the water is gone.

It's a little tricky.

Check out the photo of my wonderful meal :)

Oh, and in case you're wondering, this weekend I pass 20 days without a single slice of pizza. I think if this were AA I'd get some kind of chip, but maybe in this case I should just get a bronzed peperoni or something.

VC

SuperChunk

Some fun news: We had an assignment in my Law & Culture class (see below) due last week, and the professor excerpted a few of our responses and distributed them to the class (and not because they were bad) and mine was one of them! It was pretty cool.

Here is the assignment:

Week One: Dignity and Personhood
Assignment: Write a description of your idealized self. It can be in the form of a super-hero or an imaginary being. What qualities in yourself would you want to enhance or eliminate? What extra powers would you want? Would they be physical or mental? What would you want to accomplish that you cannot in your ordinary state? To what extent would your enhanced attributes involve powers over other people?

Because of logistical issues, we didn't actually have this prompt when we did the assignment (it was posted late), so all we knew was that we had to design a superhero self and describe what aspects of our identity this would mean idealizing, and what aspects it would mean euthanizing.

If you're curious, my superhero power was HIV immunity. I tried to make two arguments, one being that HIV immunity would effectively mean the euthanizing of my homosexual self (I argued that "gay" and "infectable" are still understood as so synonymous that one can't be gay if one can't be infected); I also argued (much more problematically, in my opinion) that because being HIV-positive creates an identity category for positive individuals that functions like race but supersedes basically ethnic racial categories, to be HIV-immune would be to preclude the possibility of an idealized above-race self...I tried to hint that there would be a feedback exaggeration of our race-based identities if we weren't capable of latching-on to superseding identity categories (many of them, I think, related to illness or disability), but I didn't get into the whole thing because we only had like 2 pages! The part she excerpted was the second argument, about HIV and categories of race, and I'm kinda foolishly proud that mine was the longest excerpt out of all the ones she made :)

If you're interested in our assignment for this week, here it is:

Week Two: The Comic Codes
Assignment: Write a reflection about the interrelationships among notions of privacy, ownership and freedom of expression. After having submitted your paragraphs on super-heroes, a surprising and significant number of you emailed me shortly thereafter, asking me not to share this or that piece of it with the class. A variety of reasons were cited: fear that some detail would identify you, or would embarrass you, or reveal some family secret or betray the confidence of others. Later in the semester we will revisit those fears and concerns in the context of emailed communications where no detail is ever erased but stored somewhere--on your hard drive or in cyberspace. For now, ask yourselves what do you fear most about strangers' knowing your most closely held secrets? Or even just your casual thoughtless jottings? (You don't have to put those secrets in print, just think about what they are.) What's at stake in feeling silly or betrayed or revealed? Economic prospects? Dignity? Popularity? Desire to be liked or loved? What is it you fear most about being characterized (or caricatured) at the hands of others? What kinds of rules, if any, do you think might fairly or legitimately deal with that concern? Style your concern first as an issue of privacy or freedom from intrusion(and from whom); secondly as a matter of control or ownership (as in property); then thirdly as a limitation on the ability of others to represent you without your permission.

VC

Fetishizing the Israeli Army

I really like the rising Israeli tennis star Shahar Peer, and she played a fantastic quarterfinal match against Serena Williams last night, barely losing 8-6 in the third. That said, I'm totally sick of and disgusted by the media's fascination with her relationship to the Israeli army.

EVERY interview, every television soudbyte and newspaper article throws-in her military status like some kind of sexy other life she has -- some kind of alluring special talent. Not only do they totally ignore the fact that *many* of these athletes underwent mandatory military service (INCLUDING the Swiss athletes!), but the way they talk about her time in the Israeli army is nauseating. You can see in this short interview after her match last night a bit of what I mean, although I've seen much worse; I find the part where they ask her if she can shoot a gun pretty disturbing (more the way it's asked than the question itself -- like: "Can you shoot a gun, too? WOW! HOT!"

ESPN had a tv segment about her last night during her Williams match, and not only was there this dramatic introduction about how she's defending the peace and security of Israel (is she?), but they even had clips of her in training in Israel, and interviewed other young army officers. I thought it was pretty revealing when she said, at one point, that she felt like it was an important thing to do because it was an essential part of being Israeli, and that she learned a lot about Israel's history by serving in the military (one wonders what sort of history lessons are being taught there!). I am also left wondering where ESPN got the footage of her in Israel -- I mean did they send a crew there two months ago even though she's not a top player yet, or is it perhaps a media package put together by Israel, itself, or her publicist/agent?

Not only does it bother me the way they create this spicy allure around her service, but it also bothers me that they refuse to problematize it at all. I've never heard a reporter ask her (and it can be done non-confrontationally, of course!) how she felt being an army officer during the recent WAR with Lebanon (from which she was exempt so long as she was traveling to play tennis tournaments and make tens of thousands of dollars a month in endorsement and prize money). Not only that, but no one has talked about how different it is to serve in the Israeli army than (to return to our favourite example) the army of Switzerland. Has anyone asked her how she feels about many young Israeli's refusal to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or her feelings about the Israeli government prosecuting them as criminals?

It's one thing to find it sexy if the number one tennis player is also an avid skydiver, of if some hot young tennis star is also in medical school back home and the press wants to invoke all kinds of naughty nurse imagery (or heroize the star as a tennis player AND life saver). It's totally different to try to turn Shahar Peer into some kind of Rambo and Laura Croft Tomb Raider lovechild with a Star of David thrown-in.

VC

India to Overtake US By 2050?

I was really surprised to see that prediction by Goldman Sachs in this article from the Times of India.

It looks like by 2050 the US is projected to be third behind China and India.

What's so important about the prediction of India's sustain growth into the next four decades is that the growth India is currently experiencing is tied to productivity. That's huge.

2050 should be fun ;)

VC

Things Fall Apart

It's finally happened that for the first time an intense friendship ended (or in this case, took a self-critical vacation) at the other person's suggestion, rather than my own. Given my history of leaving behind friends like mobile phones in the backseat of taxicabs, it's interesting to be on the other end. I wonder if the other person always felt what I feel now, which is that it's definitely for the best. I think when two highly-discussive people for some reason can't discuss the problems in their own relationship, that's basically when you have to make the choice to stop discussing. I'd felt for a long time -- a very long time -- that there may be this problem that we'd never be able to fix (a fundamental lack of respect on Desi's part for who I am as a person, and a failure on his part to understand me as, on the whole, a responsible and ethical person with a ton of integrity) and I knew it would only be a matter of time before I'd not be able to ignore it anymore. I knew that when that moment came it would likely mean the end of a friendship, because I didn't sense a lot of potential on our parts to work on it, and it appears I was right. It was a great friendship for a ton of reasons, which is why this underlying problem was always outweighed by all the other benefits of being friends, but I knew that the dynamic was deeply-flawed.

I think part of the utility we find in friendships -- what makes them productive and worthwhile, if you want to look at it that way -- is that friends encourage us to be self-critical and honest about who we are and how we function when we might otherwise be too close to perform that analysis on our own (or reluctant to do so without support). Where I think this dynamic sickened is that it became very much about why everything I say/do/think/am motivated by is wrong. One of our only discussions about his continued torment about being a slave to his perfectionism foreshadowed this a bit, but I don't think Desi agrees with me about what's even happening, let alone why. Knowing that I'm someone who is positively enthralled by the people who challenge me and make me uncomfortable (I've always sought a certain element of productive devastation, particularly at the intellectual level), I don't think that this is simple defensiveness on my part, or reluctance to face criticism. I got tired of SO much pessimism and negativity being projected onto me, and because I am a critical person who takes his friends concerns to heart, I was always made to feel "am I really on the verge of disaster like he says?" from the smallest projects ("should I really be studying for my exam tonight? should I not?") to the biggest ones ("am I really incapable of understanding what motivates me and why?"). I finally decided that I was not perpetually hanging off a cliff, and that I wanted to stop being made to feel that I was. What I learned is that Desi is incapable of reading anything I say or do to the contrary, and for some reason understanding me as always potentially-disastrous is something he needed (or something that our dynamic needed).

In any case, something that has been immensely positive for more than two years (and by positive I don't mean "lovey and supportive" but I mean "productive, useful, evolving") has turned overwhelmingly negative, and I think I was alone in sensing that until I expressed it in pretty direct terms (admittedly not as calmly as this) to Desi, at which point he recommended a six month break and I readily agreed. I decided against republishing the emails, here, but one of the kind of funny last things said was that I told him that he needed to think about why it was important for him to push my buttons like a cranky child does to a parent, and he told me he thought I had too many buttons. I found this a bit hilarious since I have never met ANYONE with as many buttons (of ALL shapes and sizes) as him.

Six months from now we'll both be engaged in our summer projects, so it will certainly be interesting to see where he's at. Even if I did become invested in the blow-by-blow progress of his various plans, and it will be odd to hear their resolution without knowing the intermediate stages, I am hopeful that things will turn out well for him.

VC

My AMAZING Exercise Pheromones

Ok I am totally not someone who has people just come up to him and hit on him randomly on the street, but the only three times in my life it's happened that I can remember were ALL when I was coming back from the gym (this is not counting the times where guys have tried to pick me up while I'm on vacation, which is a totally different phenomenon).

My conclusion is that I generate insanely attractive post-workout pheromones.

The first two times happened basically back to back (within days of each other), and I don't remember which came first, but one of the times I was walking back from Central Park after a late spring/early summer run, my last year in NYC before Egypt, and I noticed this really hot guy totally checking me out -- like with that look like he seriously wanted to devour me. I was shocked, assumed I was misinterpreting the look, and just kept walking. Half way down the avenue block (so it's a really long block) I turn around and he's STILL staring at me.

Here's where things got weird -- and keep in mind that during both these two incidents I was dating R (formerly known as Pookie), and of course told him about both of them. So I see the guy staring at me and I kind of thought "this is like some ridiculous cruising scene from some gay story or something" and had this urge to just tear-down the absurdity of the moment and so I just waved at him. Not like a "come over here" wave, but like a "yes I see you, and this is idiotic" wave. Now, a friend at the time pointed out to me that there must have been something deeper motivating me, because it's not like we devote energy to ALL the times we think others are being idiotic, and so I really didn't need to wave, but I did.

When he came over, I just kept thinking "what is happening? why is this hot guy actually walking towards me, now?" As has happened now EVERY time I've been cruised like this, these guys who give off this ravenous and borderline predatory sexual energy from afar are totally nice guys when they open their mouths. It's really funny. He introduced himself and said that he was Israeli and said he thought I was Israeli, too (SUCH a compliment!). I told him I wasn't, and I immediately said "I actually have a boyfriend." His response was pretty funny: "Well I'm in the City visiting my girlfriend. Do you live nearby? What are you doing now?" WOW. He totally didn't get my point about the boyfriend, although I can see how my acknowledging him at all send the wrong signal (which I didn't understand at the time at all).

The whole thing became really interesting and kind of funny when I just made it clear to him that he wasn't coming home with me, and somehow we started talking about the fact that I was moving to Egypt. We were then talking about spirituality and the universe and I just kept thinking "this is SUCH an odd moment, and he is so hot? what is going on??" He said something really interesting, which was that it was just a coincidence of the universe that we were crossing the street at the same time, and that even though this wasn't the right time for us to meet, since neither of us were really available, maybe he'd see me crossing another street one day. Somehow I felt really content to leave it at that. It was odd, but nice.

The second incident was even weirder (and, as I said, within a few days of the first). I had run south until I didn't want to run anymore with the intention of taking the subway home (I often did this when I wasn't running the loop in Central Park), and on the subway I had that same feeling as a few days before, that someone was watching me. Not just looking at me, but WATCHING me. I looked across the row in front of me and to the left and this guy with (the first thing I noticed) the most insanely defined arms was totally staring at me. I was at first distracted by his torso, not only because he had one of those muscular but not too big and 4% body fat model torsos, but also because he was wearing this really interesting shirt that was sort of like a dark maroon and black cloudy shit with a huge silkscreened image of the Virgin Mary on it. It was kind of beautiful but kind of odd, whic his exactly how he turned out to be.

He was completely staring at me. Not smiling, but not staring in a brooding way, either. It was the way I stare at the Uno deck when my mother is shuffling it, willing her to subconsciously shuffle-in the Wild Draw Fours to my hand, or the way I stare at the television screen during a tennis match, willing the opponent of a favourite player of mine to double fault or make an unforced error. That's how he was looking at me.

Before his stop, he got up and stood next to me and fixed that same gaze upon me and when the doors opened, it was very weird, because they didn't close when they were supposed to. I remember when he stepped off seeing that branch of of the probability tree sort of vanish (but we get used to that, especially in relationships, and learn not to mourn it because branches are created all the time in every aspect of our lives). Ok I won't bore you with my probability tree thing, but the point is that he got off the train and I felt the moment die and then, as our bodies get used to a certain interval (the interval that a standard panning shot stop and focuses on something and moves on in EVERY movie we see, or the interval, in this case, that the subway doors stay open on that line on a normal evening), the doors just stayed open. I remember thinking "that is so funny, it's like the moment isn't supposed to end" but even THEN I didn't get up. They stayed open. There was no opening and closing with the conductor imploring people to step in and stand clear; no one was rushing to transfer from a train across the tracks; no announcement was made that we were being held temporarily at the station. The doors just stayed open.

I sprung out of my seat, thinking that I was absolutely insane, absolutely betraying R, going crazy that I'd have this incident and the Israeli incident in a matter of days, and wondering what would happen next. I turned out of the car towards the stair case and there he was. Maybe he was willing me and the train. So few people have the ability to puzzle or surprise me, that I have to confess a total romantic weakness for those who can throw me for a loop (more often than not, I have to create a loop to throw myself on and temporarily attribute it to them so I can feel attracted before I get bored with my own game).

When we got to the top of the stairs I just said "hey-" and before I could get out the rest of my sentence, his counterpoint to my rushed "hey-" was the most self-possessed and calm "Hello." It was so odd, the way he could elongate the space around him. I mean we can all draw out our words, but it was as if he could slow down the space through which those words passed. The space we were in. I continued: "who ARE you?"

We walked 30 blocks to my street, during which time he told me that he was a Playgirl model turned photographer, that he hated himself for wasting his 20s hating his body, that he feels happy that in his 30s he's understanding his artistic drive, that he thinks the most important thing a person can do is have children, because nothing makes a person so introspective as that, and that he was staring at me because I was so unique. He then told me that I had to walk him the 30 blocks back to his street where we got off the subway, we exchanged contact info, and I have to say that's pretty much were the magic ended.

True to form, my insecurity at the time allowed me to be simultaneously manipulative and self-torturing, and although we met up with a Swiss friend of mine for drinks and for him to show me his art, and although promises were exchanged the he and his boyfriend and R and I would all have dinner, I swiftly poisoned our dynamic.

It was SO messed-up. I introduced the Swiss guy to him to protect myself from him actually desiring me, to prove to myself that the Swiss guy didn't really like me and would easily fall for someone more beautiful...they were supposed to meet each other and ignore me and make me feel like my calculus was impenetrable, even though I had an inner suspicion that it wasn't. I should write about this Swiss guy sometime, because it was one of the real turning points in my personal development (there were a lot of those around 21, 22 I have to say). It couldn't REALLY be happening that either of those guys would have liked me, so I did my best to make it happen that they wouldn't.

My sabotage worked, but not in the way I intended it to. Swiss guy never expressed any attraction to Playgirl model (in fact he found him a bit ridiculous), and when I talked with Playgirl later I was surprised how he called me on what was going on. He told me that he wasn't interested in my game of seeing how he'd react to someone else: "I don't want to be tested -- my attention is fixed on you." It was stunning. I never spoke to him again. Actually, I did email him once to tell him that there was a typo on his photography/modeling website. I learned to think of his art as downmarket and poorly executed, to think that he wasn't as attractive as I imagined, and to judge his relationship with his boyfriend. It's always more comfortable to despise a man than to feel attracted to him.

The third time I've been hit-on on the street was today. I'm not sure if I've told many of you about my Harlem revelation, but the short version is that I realized that there a branch of my gym AND two really useful subway lines within 9 minutes walking distance (with the subway I would always take by Columbia being a 7 minute walk, so they're almost identical). I went to the gym and went down to the subway to go straight to J&R to buy my new humidifier (perhaps for another blog). On the platform, you can imagine what happened. That same feeling of being visually examined.

This guy was impressive, because he wasn't even on my subway platform, but was across the tracks -- so far away that I wasn't sure if his eyes were on me or on someone in my general area. I knew though, deep down. I think we always know when someone is attracted to us, but rarely is it something we want to admit -- in part because it would force us to reconsider the conclusions we've made about our own attractiveness and the way other people view us (our worldview of human attraction), and in part because we find the threat to our autonomy that being coveted by someone presents to us.

The trains were taking forever to come, and he literally did not take his eyes of me. It was almost making me feel a bit ashamed. After about 5 minutes of unbroken stare (me looking out of the corner of my eye, trying not to make the fact that I'd noticed him noticing me be noticed), he walked towards the end of his platform so that when I was looking ahead onto my track he was right there. His gestures for me to come to that side of the platform and get on the train were so imperceptible that to this moment I could have imagined them. He actually left his platform, though, in order to (I imagined) come over to mine. I knew that I wanted to go buy my humidifier and be back in time for tennis and that I had zero intention of going anywhere with him, and I knew that he'd just be wasting his time to come over to my side (especially because he didn't know that it wasn't even the line going to my house, so even if I were interested it was a non-starter since it wasn't the right side of the platform to go to his).

The problem with the "DL" (down-low) culture in Harlem is that it was basically impossible for me to communicate to him that he was wasting his time, but I figured the problem was solved when he seemed never to reappear. That's what I thought. When my train came and I began to walk to the door, he appeared out of nowhere. I then gestured the only way I could think by tapping by wrist like "sorry no time" (this is clearly not a language I'm fluent in!) but he shrugged and got on the train! He must be some kind of expert, because after standing directly in front of me and half-smiling, he then stood next to me so that his reflection was directly in front of me and he could stare without anyone really knowing. Stop after stop went by and I just kept thinking "I need to tell this guy there's no chance."

After about five stops, he went to the door and gestured to me to get out at the next stop. It was something out of a B-movie. I didn't want to get out because I thought it might take a long time for the next train to come, but I felt really bad that I'd somehow lead this guy on (I guess he's basically my polar opposite in terms of reluctance to admit someone is expressing interest -- I don't believe someone when they're saying it loud and clear, and he believes it with basically no encouragement at all).

I did get off at the next stop and immediately said to him, "Hi. I'm sorry but I have to go downtown to buy something for my room. It makes water in my room." (Call me presumptuous, but something told me that unless I knew how to say "humidifier" in Spanish, it was best to keep the language as simple as possible). He then said "Oh, you got someone else waiting for you, ah?" I said "No, I really need to go to J&R...do you know J&R?...to buy something for my room." He was really nice about it, and tried to make some small-talk since he knew I had to wait for the next train. We didn't get very far, but I know his name is Jose and he has a great handshake!

He asked me if I wanted his number, and I told him the truth, that I didn't have my phone with me (I knew I'd be at the gym or running errands on the subway all day, so why bring it?), but that was stupid of me, because then he said: "Ok well put your number in my phone." He fips open his phone and OF COURSE there is a picture of his adorable little son, probably 6. It was like Egypt all over again! I was reluctant, but gave it to him (I figure I don't need to answer if I don't want to), and then it was so shocking because all of a sudden, while I'm dialing my number in, he just GRABBED me! He simultaneously grabbed me, you know, THERE, and kissed me as the train sped into the station. I was completely shocked -- like almost frozen shocked where you want your mind to work more quickly because you have to do SOMETHING in order to counteract the inertia of someone else's physical action, but luckily since the train came he let go and said "ok I'll call you later."

Thankfully I'm home and I haven't gotten a call from anyone I don't know, but I guess the overall point is that I'm apparently totally irresistible when I'm coming back from the gym!

VC

VC: FOR THE RECORD

For the record, it's been a LOT colder in NYC than it's been in Switzerland, lately. Yesterday it was actually 15 degrees warmer in Geneva than it was in NYC -- it's not even below freezing in Switzerland and it hasn't snowed in the city!

VC

SWISSY IS COMING!

Just wanted to announce that my Swissy is coming to visit for my birthday (how sweet is that?) -- he's flying in to JFK at 2:55pm on 16 February and leaving at 7:45pm on the 18th.

It's sad that he'll only be here for two days, but I'm really excited to see him again!

VC

UPDATE: Swissy has just emailed me to tell me that he's booked a really nice hotel for my birthday and it's a surprise where...I'm very curious! I don't think it's fair for him to spend so much money just to come for 48 hours for my birthday, though, so I offered to give him my Swiss miles...not much (only enough for one roundtrip flight within Europe) but at least showing him that I appreciate what he's doing.

Why Religion is Bad, and State-Fuelled Hatred is Worse

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/aus07/news/story?id=2731537

Thin Women's Field at Australian Open

Well the draw for the Aussie Open has been released, and I'm not that excited for the men or women. On the men's side, you have...well you have Roger Federer, and you have Rafael Nadal, and that's about it...so tune-in for another Federer-Nadal final where Federer will win.

On the women's side, you have Henin pulling-out to settle her divorce to her sweet-but-probably-gay husband, which is all for the best since I always thought she was a lesbian, anyway. She's gone, Venus Williams is gone (she's been gone in spirit for a while, but just having her name entered spices things up), Serena hasn't made nearly as much progress as we'd have hoped, a lot of the top Russians are underperforming in the warmup tournaments (the exception being Sharapova -- who has yet to perform at all, not having entered any warmups except an exhibition where she was beaten by Clijsters), and Davenport is out having a baby and probably retired. [and I'm using run-on sentences]

I see the women's draw like this:

Bottom Half

On the bottom half, it's more or less a march to the finals for Mauresmo (how bold -- to predict a finalist before the tournament even starts! Ok well she is the #2 seed...). There is almost nothing exciting going on in Mauresmo's quarter of the draw, except a Round of 16 match between Dementieva and Vaidisova, which should be good, but should also be inconsequential when the winner loses to Mauresmo in the quarters.

In the other quarter of the bottom half, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on with lurkers (like Israeli Shahar Peer), and I think that will be the quarter of the draw that keeps people watching the early rounds. You have a Petrova-Serena Williams third round face-off, with the winner of that taking on the red-hot and body-broken Jelena Jankovic in the Round of 16 (the girl has won both warmup tournaments going into the Aussie Open, but is now practically on crutches as a result). The other Round of 16 match in that quarter is also exciting, with Kuznetsova going up against Peer, and the winner of that taking-on the winner of the Petrova/Serena-Jankovic match in the quarters (you follow?). All the excitement aside, I think it will basically go by the seeding and you'll have Petrova against Kuznetsova in that quarter when all is said and done.

This means that the semifinal for the bottom half should ultimately have Mauresmo taking-on the winner of the Kuznetsova-Petrova match, which I hope will be Petrova, but which won't matter because I predict Mauresmo moving-on to the finals regardless. [I know this happens to be what the seeding predicts, but I just don't see an upset happening at this stage]

Top Half

The top half is not super exciting, either. In the first quarter, you have an interesting Round of 16 match between Sharapova and Ivanovic, and I predict that the winner of that match will march all over her quarterfinal opponent (probably Schnyder) and into the semifinals.

In the other quarter, I think you have Clijsters gliding into the quarterfinals and taking-on the winner of a Hingis-Safina Round of 16 match. It will be a really tough one, as Hingis is seeded higher but recently lost to Safina in the final of a warmup tournament two weeks ago. I think, though, that Hingis will pull-through (since you know she will have *studied* that match she lost), and face Clijsters in the quarters.

This means that the semifinal of the top half will have the winner of the Sharapova-Ivanovic Round of 16 match taking-on the winner of the Clijsters-Hingis Quarterfinal match. I think that ultimately it will go with the seeds (sorry Hingis! I still love you!) and put Sharapova against Clijsters. **HERE IS WHERE I PREDICT THE MOST MAJOR UPSET (note that a lof of my earlier-rounds predictions involve upsets, including Serena even making the third round, and Peer making the quarters) --> I see Clijsters upsetting Sharapova (like she did recently in the exhibition event) and moving-on to a final against Mauresmo.

Overall Prediction

Clijsters said a long time ago that she'd retire at the end of this season, and while we don't know now if she still thinks that, I can see her doing it with the Australian Open 2007 title under her belt. That said, Mauresmo has such an easy route to the finals compared to Clijsters (who will have at least two big matches in the quarters and semis) that I think Mauresmo will be the fresher of the two. Overall, probably because Mauresmo is second only to Hingis in my list of faves (and sometimes third to Henin, depending on where Henin is at that point), I'm going to go with Mauresmo as the winner.

VC

UPDATE: When I wrote this Jankovic had match point against Clijsters in the finals of the last warmup tournament in Sydney and I called her the winner, but it turns out Clijsters turned it around to win in three sets after 2.5 hours. More reason to believe she'll upset Sharapova in the semis!

PS: You can check out this article from The Guardian to see how my predictions match up with those of the press -- although as validated as I am by the article's picks, I have to say that it's not exactly expertly-written, since there are a few errors in the reading of the draw (the author confuses some of the sections of the draw, including an important mistake in terms of Clijsters's opponents, who the author steals from Hingis's part of the draw!).