Citizen Reporter

This evening I’m preparing for a podcast covering the current state of Nepal, with the help of an excellent Nepalese blogger. It’s not often you’ll find information about the struggle taking place in that country on the cover of the NYtimes or on the latest post from your favorite A-list bloggers. Yet the fate of a nation and its 27.6 million people hang in the balance, and there is a whole other part of the blogosphere that is paying attention.

I’m going to wake up at 5 in the morning, which is something I haven’t done.. well.. in years, to get a chance to speak with one of the people behind “United We Blog! for a democratic Nepal.” While reading lots of posts from that blog, I’ve also been consulting the blog of an expat in New York City – Democracy for Nepal, who I should probably also consult for a followup and another point of view, later on.

As I browse all these blogs, I keep coming across the google ad, in Dutch, about taking a trip to Mount Everest. Which got me thinking: so many westerners admire and pursue the idea of climbing everest, yet how many give a shit for what happens in the country where the mountain is located? The challenge of climbing a mountain=cool. The challenge of encouraging human rights and quality of life=not a priority.

Or perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe all the Everest tourists have a deep concern for Nepal. Maybe they write their representatives and urge them to get informed and involved at some level. Maybe they donate to organizations that work in Nepal to enhance life and basic rights.

Tomorrow I shall perhaps learn the answer to some of this and much more. Any questions you’d like me to ask, write them in the comments Radio Open Source style.

It sounds like a dessert. But really you should never bite into it, because it probably tastes like fat, sweaty, old men. No offense to the sweaty fat guys out there, it’s not all your fault. But if there’s one thing I like about the Israeli parliament, is that you only need 2% of the vote for your party to get some seats.

I was just thinking about this as they count up the votes and smile for the cameras; say you’re a bunch of old retired people? You can just get together, go door to door, or maybe just stroll the halls of the retirement home, and after lots of work, maybe you’ll get your 2%! Voila, suddenly the old retired party has some seats for the big show; and you’ll be banging your fist against the table and running over other parliamentarians toes with your wheelchair in no time! Oh wait – that already happenned… they’re called the Gimla’ey Yisrael LaKneset. Hows that for representation? – fun!*

So the old people got a few seats and as I scan down the list past the big mainstream parties, I see they’ve got a communist arab party with some seats, a religious arab party with some seats, a social democractic party, a party united around the Torah, and then a bunch of religious parties with very long and scarey names. Scarey to me, they could actually mean “Milk and Cookies for Everyone in Israel party”… something about Hebrew that makes even milk and cookies look aggressive to me.

Anyway they’re counting the little sheets of paper and the numbers are rolling in. And you don’t need me to tell you who won and who is an unpopular, never going to be prime minister again, zero-personality, war mongering, far-right jerk. You’ve got the media and plenty of blogolas to tell you that stuff. I’m just hoping the Amsterdam cable system can hook me up with live coverage of the Knesset from now on – it’ll be more interesting than Idols.

* This is not sarcasm, I actually think this is much cooler than a certain OTHER type of government system.