(no subject)
Sep. 16th, 2006 05:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_ultharusLife
It's been a very quiet day at home after the nightmare that were the exams. I've been reading a play for my last course -- Ralph Roister Doister, the English language's first comedy on the stage (not counting Mystery Plays).
It's funny, but it's written entirely in rhyming couplets. That's a little distracting, and it's beginning to feel like I'm reading Dr. Seuss.
Other than that, I'm nearly three-quarters done my final edit of the novel (of course, there'll be another minor edit, I suspect, after I get some feeback from friends).
Politics
It's been awhile since I did a political post, though I know that's what some people read my journal for.
I yanked this good article on Afghanistan from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pinkville, which is the best illustration of why this war is going to fail, no matter how many troops we throw that way out of Canada's meagre supply.
Plus, the Taliban and our warlord allies are both supported by the only thing Afghanistan still produces: heroin. The CIA World Factbook estimates Afghanistan's unemployment rate at 78%, and my guess is that the majority of the other 22% are military, government, or drug cultivators/cartel.
In fact, opium poppy production has increased by somewhere between 40% and 59% (depending on who's doing the estimating). Most of that junk flows into the West.
ETA: I cut a little of the bombast out, for those of you who read the longer version of this post this earlier. It was a bit unfair. Harper's not the only one to blame for the poverty in this country -- his predecessors did a fine job helping that along, too, and provincial leaders certainly deserve their share of the blame.
It's been a very quiet day at home after the nightmare that were the exams. I've been reading a play for my last course -- Ralph Roister Doister, the English language's first comedy on the stage (not counting Mystery Plays).
It's funny, but it's written entirely in rhyming couplets. That's a little distracting, and it's beginning to feel like I'm reading Dr. Seuss.
Other than that, I'm nearly three-quarters done my final edit of the novel (of course, there'll be another minor edit, I suspect, after I get some feeback from friends).
Politics
It's been awhile since I did a political post, though I know that's what some people read my journal for.
I yanked this good article on Afghanistan from
pinkville, which is the best illustration of why this war is going to fail, no matter how many troops we throw that way out of Canada's meagre supply.Plus, the Taliban and our warlord allies are both supported by the only thing Afghanistan still produces: heroin. The CIA World Factbook estimates Afghanistan's unemployment rate at 78%, and my guess is that the majority of the other 22% are military, government, or drug cultivators/cartel.
In fact, opium poppy production has increased by somewhere between 40% and 59% (depending on who's doing the estimating). Most of that junk flows into the West.
ETA: I cut a little of the bombast out, for those of you who read the longer version of this post this earlier. It was a bit unfair. Harper's not the only one to blame for the poverty in this country -- his predecessors did a fine job helping that along, too, and provincial leaders certainly deserve their share of the blame.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-17 03:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-17 03:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-17 12:02 pm (UTC)As for changing the rant, I just thought it was a bit hyperbolic. Harper's neo-liberalism hasn't had a chance to add its poison to that which Mulroney, Chrétien, and Martin spent decades destroying.
The decaying cities, the increasing number of homeless, and the growing gap between rich and poor do indeed foster heroin use, but Harper is still too new to lay these at his feet.
I'm sure he'll make himself "worthy" of his predecessors, given time and if he ever achieves a majority government.
(Sorry if you got notification for this twice -- I accidentally posted under my roommate's name.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-19 07:31 am (UTC)Whenever the meter of Shakespeare started to distract me from actually processing the English meaning of the lines, I applied what I like to call "Academic Plan B". It goes something like, "When it can't get any worse, save a backup copy and start drinking." (The "B" is for "booze", you see.) So far it's worked for reading assignments, research papers, copy editing, calculus, programming, and my online German workbook.
I also got through 1 Henry IV much faster after I caught some virulent plague and ended up taking one of every color of OTC drug in my apartment. It turns out Hotspur is a lot funnier that way, too. Who knew?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-19 12:33 pm (UTC)