Podcasting since 2004; Conversations, conflicts, adventures and monologues from around the world.
The news reports indicate the that Taliban is alive and well in Afghanistan. Meanwhile life goes on, the militaries of various nations work in the country, and we are left wondering what is going on. In this program I speak with an Afghani translator for the US military, and ask him what changes he has seen.
No Links Today, interview speaks for itself.
Tomorrow is an insanely big day for interviews on the podcast. I’ve got three lined up. Two I’ll leave as a surprise, though I’ve mentioned them before. The other is the interview with a very interesting Afghani doctor who works with the US military in Afghanistan. Which means I need to get to sleep to be fresh and alert when I make that call first thing in the morning.
But before I go off to bed. Today I was catching up on Ha’Aretz articles from the past few days. I really appreciate the reporting in that paper, though Im sure some would scoff at its plethora of opinions and open criticism of the *gasp* Israeli government, which apparently not far from calapse, oddly enough.
In particular today, there is one article that embodies the rediculousness and the iron fisted destructiveness of the Israeli military actions in Gaza, which in theory they pulled out of a while back. This story was about the most modern power station in the middle east, which had been built by a cooperation involving Enron (haha). Back in June the Israeli military bombed the power station, effectively cutting off 60% of Gaza’s energy. The bombing was said to be in response to Hamas militants kidnapping the Israeli soldier. Either that or it was punishment for the citizens having elected Hamas. Even more bizarre, the remaining 40% of electricity for the terroritory is purchased from Israel!
Imagine. Your country/land is crippled by the very government you have to then turn to and pay for electricity which they in effect deprived you of to begin with. Must be a strange purchase to make, maybe no one looks anyone in the eye and they try to forget the exchange after its over.
Also according to the article, Israel could have paralyzed the station simply by withholding fuel; yet for some reason they chose to destroy it. And then we hear about governments blaming the Palestinian Authority for not having control over what people and militants do in their terroritory. They call them ineffective and use violence to inflict collective punishment. Then to add further insult, you had the western nations declaring sanctions against the Palestinian government, which then means they can’t pay the salaries of their employees and YES military. Who then get angry and desperate, and eventually resort to violence.
People always take the cop out and call it a big mess. Everyones fault, they’ll say. Makes it easier to talk about Israel and Palestine that way, you blame everyone and ignore it, that way no one can accuse you of taking sides and there’s no need to pay attention to facts.
Once again that quote I mentioned last week, comes to mind, “It is as if you cut off my arms, chop off my legs, throw me in the ocean, and then ask – why can’t you swim?”
Dear US and UK, please keep your terrorism paranoia to yourselves. We have quite enough of our own here in the Nertherlands.
Like a media sucker, I’m watching the news reports from the BBC. Amazing that they have news reports even though the have no information. They even tell the viewer they have no information. They then proceed to show you video footage of airplanes behind a fence and they invite experts to talk about how they don’t know anything either. Go to commercial, back to our wall street analyst in New York.
They arrested a bunch of people. I can already tell you why. The reason is: if you turn around a plane and scramble f16’s to guide it back to Amsterdam, then someone’s at least gotta get arrested. It’s the least they can do.
One of the girls on the plane was describing what she noticed on the flight, she said
“we were in the air, and some people noticed that a group of south asians were not paying attention to the flight attendants guidelines.”
If being uninterested and ignoring the flight attentant with the useless seatbelt overview is terrorism, than I’ve been terrorizing the skies since I was 12 years old.
Throughout the past 5 years you may have seen the occasional story about immigration and Australia. As the government plays the law and order card, how do Australians, many once immigrants themselves, see their governments policies? Warwick of Nimbin Radio joins me from New South Whales, Australia, to share what has happened and what may happen when it comes to Australia’s attitudes and policies towards immigration.
Related: Roger Maynard’s Article in the Guardian
Just arrived from France and I had a chance to read lots of newspapers on the way. ..
Finally, someone besides a blogger said it. Not just someone, an airline exec, namely the CEO of Ryanair, has threatened to sue British Aviation if they don’t stop with the excessively useless restrictions.
Obviously I’ve expressed my feelings on this issue enough in the past, but I’m a radical, so you should expect nothing less. This, on the other hand, is a very mainstream guy who’s airline I don’t even care for very much. But to read his quotes that say things like “Toiletries are not going to destroy the world” .. can’t remember where I read that one. But at the end of that particular article, he also says the classic line which I think holds alot of value: “The best way to make a statement against terrorism, is to go about your life and do things as you would normally”. It may sound lame to some, but I very much believe in that statement.
So Michael O’Leary, I don’t know much about you, but in a world full of alarmists and yes-men, here’s to you!
Anytime I make a trip to Paris, it has become a priority of mine to visit with Madame L and the French man in their secluded hideout out amongst the badgers and the cornfields. So of course today I made my way out of Paris and over to the homestead for lunch. As an added bonus on this particular trip, I met many of the daughters I had long heard so much about. And of course they were as great as I suspected, but thats not what this post is about.
As we sat back laughing about old songs from yeast radio and the crap you find on youtube, Madame and I returned to a familiar theme… life in the US. We spoke about friends and family and what situations they are in; as in housepayments, mortgages, insurance payments, loans, credit card debt, etc etc. All these things may be part of your normal day dear reader, but what we were discussing is how we don’t have these things. Beyond that, how when some friends talk to us, they say “you’ll so lucky, you get to live in europe and you don’t have to deal with this.” This statement, of course, has many holes. Not the least of which is that you can actually have lots of these things in Europe just as you do anywhere else. However, the idea that we are somehow lucky for having chosen to live where we live, that’s the strange thing.
We both agreed it is not a matter of luck. It is choice. And despite whatever drawbacks; like living far from loved ones or not making your whopping salary, you too can make the choice and be that person who lives in Europe. Or Kuala Lampur. Or wherever.
No where is it written that all humans must go forth and take out loans and get themselves lots of car payments and other assorted longterm financial requirements. Yet strangely enough, it is people like Madame L and I who are often referred to as the strange ones, or the lucky ones, because we don’t have any of that.
strange world. but hey.. nous aurons toujours paris.