Culture in the Blender

One of the most obvious differences between the United States and Europe is how racism is structured. In some ways, racism in Europe seems rather simple. Perhaps it seems simple to me in part because I’ve seen it so much more than in the US, but the key concept seems to be xenophobia. The people […]

[Read more →]

A while back, my boyfriend’s (sambo/avomies) sister told him, after him mentioning that the dollar was falling, that the dollar falling was some kind of lie or conspiracy or misrepresentation. I’m not sure how the wording was put, I wasn’t there. But she clearly hadn’t heard of it in the probably 2+ years that it’s […]

[Read more →]

You know you’re not American when the first thing that pops into your head as a defense when people accuse you of being classist, even as a joke, is to confess your bourgeoise background (because you know you’re not talking your way out of that one) and proclaim the insignificance of your suffering compared to […]

[Read more →]

Listening to Pandora at work, a song called New American Century by KMFDM came on. The lyrics caught my attention. In context of what I’ve been reading (and re-reading) this seems right on the money. There are strong directions in American politics that could endanger not only democracy and freedom in America, but given America’s […]

[Read more →]

While waiting at O’Hare recently, I made the mistake of walking into a bookstore to spend some time. (I don’t have gold status with any frequent flyer program, since I fly so little, so I can’t wait in a lounge.) I call it a mistake, because I’m almost incapable of walking into a bookstore without […]

[Read more →]

This morning, I read my American boyfriend some parts of Jeremy Rifkin’s book The European Dream. I read the sections pertaining to the American Dream and the religosity of the United States. The extent of religosity and its ties to the American Dream in the United States was made clear to me for the first […]

[Read more →]

The BBC reports that Dragan Zelenovic, a Bosnian Serb, has been convicted of crimes against humanity.
From the BBC report:
Zelenovic was among Bosnian Serb forces responsible for a campaign of rape and sexual assault of Muslim women in 1992 and 1993 in Foca, where he was deputy commander of the military police.
One of the women was […]

[Read more →]

Just a little after writing yesterday’s post I happened to check the BBC News website, and lo and behold: US ‘no longer technology king’. So it’s happened already. I wonder how long it will take until the reality sinks in here. One day, there will be a lot of wounded national pride here - especially […]

[Read more →]

I’ve been listening to a radio station I created on Pandora Internet Radio from the song Encore Un Fois by Sash!. (It was a huge hit in the 90s in Europe.) So, I’ve been getting a mix of trance and goa, mostly, and listening to that while calculating things from some data has made me […]

[Read more →]

The Globalist has reprinted parts of a speech by de Villepin to the UN Security Council before the war in Iraq began. I wish the US would have listened. The US is dangerously out of step with changing global realities that they are both subject to and help shape. They also seem to have forgotten […]

[Read more →]