L. Paul Bremer

I’ve been going to some book discussions lately. I rather like being in DC for them. I skip the poetry ones but I’ve been to three: one with Jarred Diamond (wrote “Collapse” and “Guns, Germs, and Steel”), one with the ambassador to Italy during the early ‘80s (wrote “Mission Italy”), and now L. Paul Bremer for “My Year in Iraq”. (I should note that I haven’t had the chance to read any of these books yet.) It was good to hear him speak. It restored my hope. It was really good to hear from somebody that was there and in the thick of what was going on. He was there and knows the score. He told us about how the Parliament is working for democracy and how there is hope. He told us how things are better there and how they will continue to improve. It won’t be over night like the press and many in our congress demand. It’s not a short-term mission; it will likely take decades to be over. I hope that we “stay the course” or rather than having improved anything we will only see it get worse. I really enjoyed hearing him talk.

I was upset that I got there about 15 min. late. Even though I left about 1.5 hours before it started. Coming back took about 45 mins. One thing that I won’t miss about DC, when I leave, is the traffic. I’ll miss the cool book discussions though. Its cool being in a town where there’s always something going on. I don’t know where I’ll be going next, yet. I have an interview at a lab at Ohio State U. It is in Columbus where my older brother and his wife live. It’s hard to know if I’m interested in the position or not. The description given is pretty generic and not really helpful. The interview won’t be till the 6th or 7th of March. So it will be a little bit till in know more about that. If I don’t go there, I’ll likely go back to Pittsburgh. I’m still applying for the Peace Corp. either way. I got that application submitted just after Christmas. I have an interview on Tuesday. I’m interested but I’m not sure what they will send me to do. I guess I’ll have to ask all my questions on Tuesday.

So Sad

Sorry guys. No funnies today.
I had heard about the bombing of the mosque, The Golden Dome, in Iraq on the radio. I didn’t really think much about it. Nothing new there, right. Just another bombing sounded like no big deal, we hear about them so much. When I got home today I was hunting through the paper for the comics. On the front page of the comics section (not really sure why this was in the style section) were before and after pictures of the mosque. If I can figure out how, I’ll attach some to this entry. It made me want to cry. Oddly enough I didn’t. Even though I’m rather girlish and cry at movies all the time. The complete destruction of this holy site is breath taking. I know that so much has been written about Iraq and everybody has an opinion on the whole thing. The opinion that we don’t hear enough is how truly sad the situation there is. These people are brothers; these guys share practically the same faith. Yet, this is how they treat each other. One can understand the bombing of the soldiers. Though it’s a poorly thought out view, they may see them as occupiers. But to bomb your own countrymen, because of their faith…? If they can’t be led out from their current line of thinking then there is little chance for any real change. I think that’s where all the planning has failed. The planners and leaders viewed these people as westerners with western values of “tolerance”. I use quotes there because we haven’t gotten it right yet, though we tend to do a little better. I can’t help but think about the middle ages: The wars between the Catholic and the Protestant church, the Spanish inquisition, the Crusades… It all sounds like they are still stuck back in the middle ages, that they haven’t come out of them yet. Then I think about Ireland and the racism that exists here and realize that we the West haven’t gotten it so right either. I don’t want to go on much more. I mostly just wanted to say how sad it makes me to see what’s going on.

I’ll have to keep praying. I didn’t see much hope when Ariel Sharon was elected and he took the first real steps to change the status quo in decades. Some days it feels like praying is all I can do. Some days it feels like all that can be done is to pray.

Fact or Fiction?

I don’t know if you heard, but recently one of the authors that wrote a book that made it onto Oprah’s book club has been disgraced. One would imagine that being on Oprah’s book list would be enough but… The book was A Million Little Pieces. It was supposed to be a memoir about the author’s terrible life growing up. I don’t know who broke the news or how it got out but apparently it was pretty much all made up. He even went back on Oprah (apparently he was on the show as part of a book tour) and tried to defend himself. Oprah was acting all self-righteous and saying how hurt she felt, and really laying into him. (I should note that I don’t watch Oprah, they showed clips of the interview on The Daily Show. The most reliable news source I watch.) He was just saying that maybe not all of it was exactly right and that he may have changed parts of the story. I’m not sure what the big deal is. I mean if Dan Brown has taught us nothing else; he taught us that Americans have no ability to tell fact from fiction. I recently finished reading The Da Vinci Code. By recently I mean about 2 months ago. I read it at the urging of my friend Lori. She used the old “Pete, it wasn’t a very good book, you should read it” trick. So I read it and I’ve got to say that I understand why it was popular. It was short with short sections. It was not complicated. It was all about a conspiracy, even better it was about a religious conspiracy. Not that good over all though. I can’t believe that it’s been on the New York Times bestseller list for like 148 weeks. Definitely won’t ever be used to torture high school English students. I should write a book. I can write at least as well as Dan. I even have a plot in mind. I’m hesitant to say what it is. I mean, my blog is so widely read and I don’t want anybody to steal my idea.

I also recently finished End of Poverty by Jeffery Sachs. It was a very good book. Dr. Sachs talks about the possibility of ending the extreme Poverty that much of the developing world is stuck in. He has some great things to say. Though I did not agree with all of it. He says at one point that the Indian election of 2004 that resulted in Manmohan Singh becoming Prime Minister was largely the result of the population of India wanting economic change. On the list of reasons that people would give, that would be the last reason if it even made the list. The reason that Dr. Singh became Prime Minister is that Sonia Gandhi was the face for the Congress Party (in India they elect a party that forms a coalition government, the party picks a Prime Minister). Most voted for Sonia Gandhi because she is a Gandhi, even though she is Italian and married a Gandhi. That and the threat that if the BJP stayed in power, for like a 3rd or 4th term, they would be able to pass really strict laws about converting religions and laws about if you aren’t a Hindu then you aren’t Indian. That’s one of the rumors that was going around at the time. He also seemed somewhat naive about that prejudices of the US against Russia. He was surprised that the US government didn’t want to help Russia when the communists fell. People didn’t like Russians, just because they were Russian. I was also disappointed about one section where he says that someone he knows is having success using anti retroviral drug in the Caribbean to treat HIV/AIDS. One reason given for drug companies not just handing out the medicine like candy is that you have to take it on a specific schedule, which you can’t do without a clock. But that this guys has had success with treatment even in such a poor area. But there wasn’t any reference to a paper or even to the guy’s name. I was rather disappointed that I couldn’t find anything about it. For the most part I really enjoyed reading the book. It’s not any easy book to read. It’s not as simply written as Dan’s book. But it was an excellent book and I hope that important people that make foreign policies will read and listen to the book.