We the Other People

Yes, it's a bear with a bikeOfficially moved in and back with my ADSL connection, hence redecorating and all kinds of changes in the near future. Let me know if the changes are to your approval. While it’s true to a certain extent that I blog for myself, you the readers are what fuels my commitment to blogging every-other-day. Speaking of which, big spike in my blog readership yesterday, surprising numbers coming from the European Union. Thanks to everyone for sticking with the communiqu?. But enough about me.

So as part of being back in my cozy pad in Amsterdam Centrum, the roomates and I tend to cook dinner together. Today’s kitchen conversation was a classic, which I’ve had with various international friends for the past few years: How much they wish non-Americans could vote in the US election. Before you start yelling, stay with me; the US is obviously a very unique country in the world. Nothing to do with the usual bullshit about freedom and democracy, both of which are relative terms and exist all over the world. It has to do with the influence: economic, cultural, political, that the US has over the world. Basically, as I’ve said before on the blog, what happens in the US effects everyone everywhere. It is this reason, as far as I can tell, that so many international folk will sigh as they watch the lame speeches in MSG and demonstrations on the street, and they’ll say “I wish everyone in the world could get to vote for the US president.”

When you think about it, it’s often very frustrating normally for Americans to look at their own government. Here I’m talking about folks who share the frustration, and have no say in the matter. And the opposite cannot be said, it wouldn’t really matter if Americans could vote for the president of Colombia or the Netherlands, because no other nation wields such power over everyone’s future.

Onto other business: My/Our blog generation continues to grow. JZ (he needed a nickname) recently launched “Sunlight Disinfectant”. While I rarely agree with the man about politics, I do agree with his idea to blog and I’ll gladly – sometimes disagreeably – read his writing. This increases the number of bloggers I’ve helped get started to 4 in the last six months. Did anyone notice the term I coined: BLOG GENERATION, you heard it here first from the finger tips of Bicyclemark. It’s “catch-terms” like these that will propel me into a career in academia… yeee haw.

Oh yeah.. I should talk about Agassi next time.

Today’s Music: Bouncing Souls (cause I saw them the other night)