Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3660
This is an article, I found to be really revealing about the relationship between psychology and international policy. It argues that we prefer to interpret evidense that confirms our assumptions, that we expect our plans to work without problems (inflated expectations) and that we abhor certain loss, even if continuing statistically indicates the likelihood of even greater future loss (ever played blackjack?). The arguments have broad applications to Iraq, North Korea and Iran. I think that particularly in Iran's case a poor understanding of Iranian history hinders our ability to act rationally and instead leads us to over-deamonize the regime (even if Tehran is worthy contempt it may also be worthy of understanding).
Iraq will have to bleed painfully and will likely pull the region into aggression if not oughtright conventional military conflict before an eventual "that will have to do" peace can be reached in the post-Yugoslavian style. US military and economic forces should be commited to salvaging a battle that can be won in Afghanistan. Stability there has much deeper implications on many fronts than casual obeservers grasp. It would offer Central Asia a South Asian alternative to Chinese and Russian economic and political dominance. By offering the region's regimes option aside from being dependent on Moscow and/or Beijing one offers the option to engage the global community on an even footing. This encourages elites to invest in their countries, rather than plunder them. Once that happens the moderation and stabilization of behavior is furtile soil for the democratic reform and accountability that tends to marginalize destabilizing actors like Islamist. If the situation continues to deteriorate however, people may feel they have nothing to lose and much to gain by revolutionary upheavals.
The obsession with trying to salvage the unsalvagable (in that we are unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to salvage it, like a draft) in Iraq, if allowed to continue, will silently but surely lead to disaster in Afghanistan. Iran looks aggressive today, imagine what it will be like surrounded by civil war in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. It will have every reason to be radical and aggressive in the face of potential destruction.
Contain Iraq (cut our losses as intelligently as possible) and don't lose Afghanistan. And press for resonable and achievable reforms among allies and foes alike. Turkmenistan will not wake up tomorrow with a feverish case of anglophilia and outbreaks of organized political parties, women's rights groups and a parliament. While it is an admirable tendency of US foreign policy to demand a degree of morality, we must base our policy on reality, not how we wish things were. You don't convince people that traditions like wearing a burqa should be stopped by attacking beliefs. Attacking beliefs (even with the best of intentions) only alienates.
Climate Change
I think one can see parallel biases in the discussion on climate change. I believe history will show that once again we should have been proactive rather than reactive on the issue. For my part, I don't think it is possible to be too green when one takes into account not only the damage done to the environment but also the political and economic risks we subject ourselves to by guzzle gas by the SUV-full. I also believe that properly explained in terms of externalities and infrastructure even hard-core individualist libretarians would reconsider their philosophically coherent stance. How many of such type advocate for the elimination of government funded road construction or a national army? Some problems are critical and require collective action.
My Semi-literate Cherubs
Things at the Alpine Fund are well. Lots of English classes.
The kids I teach at CPC (Center for the Protection of Children) near Osh Bazaar span a wider range of literacy than I expected. Some take about a minute to write a word. I always knew that illiteracy existed but it existed in the abstract. I am sure that some of the folks I met in Bolivia or Peru were illiterate. But I assumed that the illiterate people I met were the 60 year olds selling handmade tapestries and fruit outside various tourist destinations. The abstraction came to an abrupt end Tuesday. I was trying to teach the kids the alphabet and even after taking painfully long to copy much of the information, many didn't copy it coherently. It is sad but also funny watching a kid start to write 'A a apple' and so froth on the correct upper left portion of the first page his new notebook but by 'M m moon' be writing about an into the backside of the coverpage.
I just kept going. I dont have the Kyrgyz language skills to teach how to take notes. So, in a personal attempt to rectify ambition in the desire to wrought the world in my own image I have revised my expectations (and my plans accordingly). Rather than covering the simple present, present continuous and simple past, we will just go as far as we go. If some of the brighter students with more home support are able to use their English to keep studying with future volunteers, that is great. If the more average of the group enjoy learning and decide they want to do more of it (or for their kids someday to do more of it) then that is great. If some of the kids with much bigger problems in their lives than learning the latin alphabet feel that the world isn't always a mean place that tries to push you down, that will be great too. By these new standards freshly grounded in a new appreciation for reality and complete with new strategies for success along these lines, I hope to succeed.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
Going Global
The Alpine Fund will be launched a 'my space' account this week. I am not necessarily pro-my space and the hyper-democratization of information in general but reality bytes these days, eh?
Hopefully we'll be able to use it to keep in touch with virtual people. Also, Ulan can learn about fiddlin' with his virtual self by checking out the AF myspace and then maybe making his own. Networking, Networking or just notworking? He will have to decide.
We sent out a big ol' email to all the widji folk asking them to forward a volunteering add to their outdoor programs. We have already had responses but so far only from people looking to come for a summer. That is all well and good but our institutional life revolves and kids and kids revolve around school.
Speaking of whom, the kids from CPC - Osh Bazaar are great. They are loud and energetic in a not shy way but still basically attentive. Not bad for a gaggle 15 of 12-13 year olds in a small room. Thus far we have no chalk, white or paper board. Hopefully we will remedy that soon. They speak almost exclusively Kyrgyz which is also a bonus for me because I need practice.
This last weekend we took some kids from CPC - Dordoi Bazaar (where our students Ulan, Adilet and Kuruchbek live) skiing for a day. We trundled on up there saturday. I spent the day snow ball fighting truant skiers and being wet.
I don't know about everywhere else in the world, but Central Asia is having another in a series of "abnormally hot" years. Maybe we should call them "years formerly known and abnormally hot." Bush is going to unleash an energy proposal. I can't wait to see how much he offers to pay energy companies that already are making record profits to seek new avenues of energy production. Nothing short of illiberal regulation will suffice I am affraid. The reason being that their are too many negative externalities in energy consumption for incentives to individual actors to work. The incentive for better environmental behavior lies with the whole, not the individual. That is why it requires models not based on self-interest. Judging by his most recent attempts to fix health care by further atomitizing the consumer and providing "tax incentives" for insurance this is not likely. As if the fault in America's health care system lay with workers scamming insurance companies into underpriced plans or unemployed persons requiring tax incentives for health insurance. Being un-insured or underinsured is terrifying. There is your demand incentive. Where is the supply incentive to provide coverage to those with pre-existing conditions or high risk groups?
But, it is much better than anything most of the world has, so we can be happy about that. In kyrgyzstan there is no coverage. But then oral surgery costs about $20 bucks. The question is then, do you want oral surgery at $20?
I just taught the first paying english class at the Fund. We are charging $1.30 for a one and a half hour class. Basically this will cover the costs of other classes and hopefully provide some access to the middle class. It is definitely a steal as normal class is 1.30 for an hour and that is not with a native speaker. Their mother sat through the class. Which was alright for me this time but that is about it. She kept interrupting to say that they already knew this or that and to prompt the students on the correct response.
I have been reading Dostoevsky lately. He is an interesting author to read because he is very much concerned with questions of the relationship between man and God, the purpose of suffering, and the tension in humans between good and desire. He also writes about all this stuff from an illiberal perspective. A lot of his criticism have yet to be properly answered from the liberal side. Take for example the problem that without God, "everything is permitted." That is to say that without some absolutist standards for judging moral behavior, how can one not slip into absolute relativism? This criticism has been well dealt with by individual philosophers that have formed coherent codes of ethics and morality without a deity at the center, however the problem is that none of these worldviews has the cohesive power of a religion. The coherence of one atheist simply becomes one man's noble efforts in the relativists' soup. Until the secular West has reconsiled its secular nature with some coherent system of judging right from wrong and demanding virtuous behavior, it will always be (rightfully) the object of absolutist criticism. What has US - and indeed Western - foreign policy been driven by if not simple material benefit? It has also been motivated by existential threats like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. In those situations foreign policy can be seen as virutous because the struggle for existence is viewed as a self-justifying end. But once existence is secure, the motivations are essentially greedy. That greedyness and consumerism has been the basis for all the major challenges to liberal hegemony be it from Fascism, Communism or Islamism.
I don't think there are any easy answers there. Most sorts of moral values justify the social context they came from; to project them onto others would be pompous. Such an value would have to be self-justifying. Perhaps environmentalism presents us with the greatest opportunity to unite behind a problem that may indeed be existential but need not be aggressive. The sorts of solutions that facing this challenge would require are likely to be inherently illiberal and allow us an opportunity for introspection and self-criticism without "proving terrorists right" or "being an apologist."
Speaking of terrorism, someone just through a snowball at my window and broke it. Scared the bajeezus out of me.
Hopefully we'll be able to use it to keep in touch with virtual people. Also, Ulan can learn about fiddlin' with his virtual self by checking out the AF myspace and then maybe making his own. Networking, Networking or just notworking? He will have to decide.
We sent out a big ol' email to all the widji folk asking them to forward a volunteering add to their outdoor programs. We have already had responses but so far only from people looking to come for a summer. That is all well and good but our institutional life revolves and kids and kids revolve around school.
Speaking of whom, the kids from CPC - Osh Bazaar are great. They are loud and energetic in a not shy way but still basically attentive. Not bad for a gaggle 15 of 12-13 year olds in a small room. Thus far we have no chalk, white or paper board. Hopefully we will remedy that soon. They speak almost exclusively Kyrgyz which is also a bonus for me because I need practice.
This last weekend we took some kids from CPC - Dordoi Bazaar (where our students Ulan, Adilet and Kuruchbek live) skiing for a day. We trundled on up there saturday. I spent the day snow ball fighting truant skiers and being wet.
I don't know about everywhere else in the world, but Central Asia is having another in a series of "abnormally hot" years. Maybe we should call them "years formerly known and abnormally hot." Bush is going to unleash an energy proposal. I can't wait to see how much he offers to pay energy companies that already are making record profits to seek new avenues of energy production. Nothing short of illiberal regulation will suffice I am affraid. The reason being that their are too many negative externalities in energy consumption for incentives to individual actors to work. The incentive for better environmental behavior lies with the whole, not the individual. That is why it requires models not based on self-interest. Judging by his most recent attempts to fix health care by further atomitizing the consumer and providing "tax incentives" for insurance this is not likely. As if the fault in America's health care system lay with workers scamming insurance companies into underpriced plans or unemployed persons requiring tax incentives for health insurance. Being un-insured or underinsured is terrifying. There is your demand incentive. Where is the supply incentive to provide coverage to those with pre-existing conditions or high risk groups?
But, it is much better than anything most of the world has, so we can be happy about that. In kyrgyzstan there is no coverage. But then oral surgery costs about $20 bucks. The question is then, do you want oral surgery at $20?
I just taught the first paying english class at the Fund. We are charging $1.30 for a one and a half hour class. Basically this will cover the costs of other classes and hopefully provide some access to the middle class. It is definitely a steal as normal class is 1.30 for an hour and that is not with a native speaker. Their mother sat through the class. Which was alright for me this time but that is about it. She kept interrupting to say that they already knew this or that and to prompt the students on the correct response.
I have been reading Dostoevsky lately. He is an interesting author to read because he is very much concerned with questions of the relationship between man and God, the purpose of suffering, and the tension in humans between good and desire. He also writes about all this stuff from an illiberal perspective. A lot of his criticism have yet to be properly answered from the liberal side. Take for example the problem that without God, "everything is permitted." That is to say that without some absolutist standards for judging moral behavior, how can one not slip into absolute relativism? This criticism has been well dealt with by individual philosophers that have formed coherent codes of ethics and morality without a deity at the center, however the problem is that none of these worldviews has the cohesive power of a religion. The coherence of one atheist simply becomes one man's noble efforts in the relativists' soup. Until the secular West has reconsiled its secular nature with some coherent system of judging right from wrong and demanding virtuous behavior, it will always be (rightfully) the object of absolutist criticism. What has US - and indeed Western - foreign policy been driven by if not simple material benefit? It has also been motivated by existential threats like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. In those situations foreign policy can be seen as virutous because the struggle for existence is viewed as a self-justifying end. But once existence is secure, the motivations are essentially greedy. That greedyness and consumerism has been the basis for all the major challenges to liberal hegemony be it from Fascism, Communism or Islamism.
I don't think there are any easy answers there. Most sorts of moral values justify the social context they came from; to project them onto others would be pompous. Such an value would have to be self-justifying. Perhaps environmentalism presents us with the greatest opportunity to unite behind a problem that may indeed be existential but need not be aggressive. The sorts of solutions that facing this challenge would require are likely to be inherently illiberal and allow us an opportunity for introspection and self-criticism without "proving terrorists right" or "being an apologist."
Speaking of terrorism, someone just through a snowball at my window and broke it. Scared the bajeezus out of me.
Monday, January 15, 2007
More shenangans and a coming change of scene
Last weekend we mounted another noble effort to teach kids how to ski. I already wrote all about it for the Alpine Fund blog. It should be posted by 8a CST, Tuesday.
Other than that, I will just lamely say that I am staying plenty busy with studying and teaching. We are taking a local English student up on her offer to teach class. We are going to put most of the current students together in one class to be taught by her. I am a little worried they won't take to it too well because her English is not great. Of course, she was nervous speaking to a native speaker for perhaps the first time. So we'll see how it goes.
I will shuttling off to Osh bazaar for sessions there. I will teach kids from the CPC (Center for the Protection of Children). These kids are mostly not orphans. Their families typically come from out-state more impoverished rural areas to work in the bazaar. The kids get caught because they need to work some to help their family get by but cannot work full time. Often they cannot affort to go to school ($5 for supplies for a year and a decent set of clothes) so they end up just sort of... well, marginalized if I might borrow an over-used term from anthropology/sociology. One could also say, screwed. When the kids work they load and unload trucks all day and/or haul heavy carts all through the crowded bazaar. Human Rights bruised by life's demands once again. What is an idealist to do?
CPC started out giving the kids hot meals. Then it started doing a little more and a little more. Now they have a school and from what I gather also function as a sort of community center (but no pool).
There is also a CPC enclave at the dordoi bazaar where many of our students live. I have had great experiences working with those kids so I have high hopes. When more volunteers come in the next few weeks (one next week, one within two weeks of that) we hope to start Proselytizing those masses to polyglutonny as well.
Ulan is now going to school. We also hired him to work 20/hours a week. He will make $50/month. This is good money. Adilet will take his place as the office intern. Hopefully it will give him some impetus to pick up the pace with the English. I think it goes a little deeper than that though.
Kids here really do not seem to learn how to study. So I am once again thankful for something I had no real means of accurately perceiving before: a good social and family framework for academic success.
I saw an add my USAID condemning corruption and reminding Kyrgyz citizens that they will go to jail if they get busted. I guess reminding a country they it is far down by world standards for corruption could fuels some beneficial national pride. It would probably be better not to put the USAID emblem on it though as it may be seen as condescending and meddlesome. (I think they are right, the US has a lot of introspection to do before we can start preaching like that again. Our city on the hill looks more like an Ivory fortress from here.)
USAID is alright but it wants to fix deep rooted problems with "business incubators," democracy seminars and TV adds. In other words, it wants a shiny solution to gloss over a negative feedback cycles of poor governance, unaccountability and instability. The US government likes to fund HUGE projects. That is all well and good but a lot of times they are pretty out of touch. It is sort of nice irony because that is what the USSR's infrastructure construction could be like. A lot of "volunteers" come over as missionaries. I am heavily biased but I think there is a strong undercurrent of ego-centrism (with the best of intentions) when people do good so that others will believe as they believe, thur reassuring the first believer that they must have been right in the first place. Terrible sentence for a complicated problem. Anyway, I find the attitude among that crowd to often be narrow-sighted and judgmental of local practices. The whole "The religion that I have been brought up to confirm for my entire life is right because it says I am right" dynamic is really intense when the proselytizer is removed from his or her cultural context.
There are a lot of religious folks and organizations that do really good work without trying to make everyone Baptist, Lutheran or Muslim also. Way to live the dream.
Yes, it is true, I judge people for being judgmental. But you better not judge me for it or you will just prove I am right.
Love to you all.
Other than that, I will just lamely say that I am staying plenty busy with studying and teaching. We are taking a local English student up on her offer to teach class. We are going to put most of the current students together in one class to be taught by her. I am a little worried they won't take to it too well because her English is not great. Of course, she was nervous speaking to a native speaker for perhaps the first time. So we'll see how it goes.
I will shuttling off to Osh bazaar for sessions there. I will teach kids from the CPC (Center for the Protection of Children). These kids are mostly not orphans. Their families typically come from out-state more impoverished rural areas to work in the bazaar. The kids get caught because they need to work some to help their family get by but cannot work full time. Often they cannot affort to go to school ($5 for supplies for a year and a decent set of clothes) so they end up just sort of... well, marginalized if I might borrow an over-used term from anthropology/sociology. One could also say, screwed. When the kids work they load and unload trucks all day and/or haul heavy carts all through the crowded bazaar. Human Rights bruised by life's demands once again. What is an idealist to do?
CPC started out giving the kids hot meals. Then it started doing a little more and a little more. Now they have a school and from what I gather also function as a sort of community center (but no pool).
There is also a CPC enclave at the dordoi bazaar where many of our students live. I have had great experiences working with those kids so I have high hopes. When more volunteers come in the next few weeks (one next week, one within two weeks of that) we hope to start Proselytizing those masses to polyglutonny as well.
Ulan is now going to school. We also hired him to work 20/hours a week. He will make $50/month. This is good money. Adilet will take his place as the office intern. Hopefully it will give him some impetus to pick up the pace with the English. I think it goes a little deeper than that though.
Kids here really do not seem to learn how to study. So I am once again thankful for something I had no real means of accurately perceiving before: a good social and family framework for academic success.
I saw an add my USAID condemning corruption and reminding Kyrgyz citizens that they will go to jail if they get busted. I guess reminding a country they it is far down by world standards for corruption could fuels some beneficial national pride. It would probably be better not to put the USAID emblem on it though as it may be seen as condescending and meddlesome. (I think they are right, the US has a lot of introspection to do before we can start preaching like that again. Our city on the hill looks more like an Ivory fortress from here.)
USAID is alright but it wants to fix deep rooted problems with "business incubators," democracy seminars and TV adds. In other words, it wants a shiny solution to gloss over a negative feedback cycles of poor governance, unaccountability and instability. The US government likes to fund HUGE projects. That is all well and good but a lot of times they are pretty out of touch. It is sort of nice irony because that is what the USSR's infrastructure construction could be like. A lot of "volunteers" come over as missionaries. I am heavily biased but I think there is a strong undercurrent of ego-centrism (with the best of intentions) when people do good so that others will believe as they believe, thur reassuring the first believer that they must have been right in the first place. Terrible sentence for a complicated problem. Anyway, I find the attitude among that crowd to often be narrow-sighted and judgmental of local practices. The whole "The religion that I have been brought up to confirm for my entire life is right because it says I am right" dynamic is really intense when the proselytizer is removed from his or her cultural context.
There are a lot of religious folks and organizations that do really good work without trying to make everyone Baptist, Lutheran or Muslim also. Way to live the dream.
Yes, it is true, I judge people for being judgmental. But you better not judge me for it or you will just prove I am right.
Love to you all.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
The Day We Tried to Buy a Car
Today we tried to buy a car. We made headway, the car is now 400 meters from where I write and we are agreed as to price and payment. Documentation is now the hang up. What a hang up. Documentation would not be a hang up except that we wanted it to be legal. I am actually the one that probably made it so. The other parties were oscillating. I thought that we should have every thing be legal on our end so that if the Norwegian government wants to see what we did with their money before they give us another grant, we can show them. I also thought that it could be useful for not committing a felony by US federal law (A 2003 law makes it illegal for US organizations to dupe foreign governments. Actually, it might only apply to bribes… but still). The negotiated price was 6,600. So we wanted a receipt for 6,600. They wanted to give a receipt for like 50 dollars. The car had been imported for around “50 dollars” this way they would not have pay 8% tax. Also we would have to pay a 5% registration tax for the value of the car.
From their point of view, it is simply win-win. All parties make avoid wasting money on the corrupt government. All parties get what they want. They were more frustrated and sad by our unwillingness to help ourselves than angry. They tried to get us to go for the 50 dollar solution literally 30 times. They had the time to do so because we waited around all day for some mysterious boss (of the import place where we needed paperwork from) to show up. He showed up while we were eating a late breakfast lunch at 2:30. Naturally he was not keep on loosing $500 of profit. Also it is apparently impossible to change the import value once it has been documented.
It all ended with us at the registration department. There some guy helped us come up with the plan that we would have the seller “buy” the car from the import company (he never registered it) and then we would buy it from him for 6,600. But we cannot get a receipt for this sale I think. So, it is all a shit show and all the frustration apparently is for not. It will all be technically legal though (I don’t get hung up on being technically legal in my personal life but running/working for an organization is not a place for one’s personal morality to loom over the law). If the Norwegians ask about their money our president will just explain or make excuses. The car will be registered in our director’s name in case we get audited.
It is frustrating that the whole system is basically set up to dysfunction. It was all backwards. At every step it resulted in more trouble and money to do things legally than illegally. It is because everything here can be bought and people regard paying taxes as basically being extorted. It is frustrating to be a part of the problem and not the solution. It is also part of a bigger problem for the Alpine Fund as an NGO. Bigger consistent donors want us to open our books and have receipts for everything. But no one but the most expensive (and often foreign owned) establishments give receipts and NGO are taxed here just like everyone else. The whole financial basis of the organization is actually illegal because we use an ATM to access our money from a foreign account or something to avoid paying 8% on every bit of money we take out. Our director claims we just play with the kids and that the crazy foreigners just pay for everything out of pocket. Basically we claim that we all but do nothing.
Then we arrive at the catch-22, the NGO cannot grow to meet its potential because the bigger donors want documentation before they give. We cannot give documentation because we are too small and need every last penny to stay afloat.
It all works out in the end but it often surprising how we get their.
From their point of view, it is simply win-win. All parties make avoid wasting money on the corrupt government. All parties get what they want. They were more frustrated and sad by our unwillingness to help ourselves than angry. They tried to get us to go for the 50 dollar solution literally 30 times. They had the time to do so because we waited around all day for some mysterious boss (of the import place where we needed paperwork from) to show up. He showed up while we were eating a late breakfast lunch at 2:30. Naturally he was not keep on loosing $500 of profit. Also it is apparently impossible to change the import value once it has been documented.
It all ended with us at the registration department. There some guy helped us come up with the plan that we would have the seller “buy” the car from the import company (he never registered it) and then we would buy it from him for 6,600. But we cannot get a receipt for this sale I think. So, it is all a shit show and all the frustration apparently is for not. It will all be technically legal though (I don’t get hung up on being technically legal in my personal life but running/working for an organization is not a place for one’s personal morality to loom over the law). If the Norwegians ask about their money our president will just explain or make excuses. The car will be registered in our director’s name in case we get audited.
It is frustrating that the whole system is basically set up to dysfunction. It was all backwards. At every step it resulted in more trouble and money to do things legally than illegally. It is because everything here can be bought and people regard paying taxes as basically being extorted. It is frustrating to be a part of the problem and not the solution. It is also part of a bigger problem for the Alpine Fund as an NGO. Bigger consistent donors want us to open our books and have receipts for everything. But no one but the most expensive (and often foreign owned) establishments give receipts and NGO are taxed here just like everyone else. The whole financial basis of the organization is actually illegal because we use an ATM to access our money from a foreign account or something to avoid paying 8% on every bit of money we take out. Our director claims we just play with the kids and that the crazy foreigners just pay for everything out of pocket. Basically we claim that we all but do nothing.
Then we arrive at the catch-22, the NGO cannot grow to meet its potential because the bigger donors want documentation before they give. We cannot give documentation because we are too small and need every last penny to stay afloat.
It all works out in the end but it often surprising how we get their.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Television in Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyz Television
Since moving into my new one-man apartment, I have had so much too much time to learn about television in Kyrgyzstan. Despite the fact that Kyrgyz is lauded by linguists as being the purest of the Turkic tongues, Kyrgyzstan has been less zealous about language purity than other Central Asian nations. On the upside, this means that Kyrgyzstan has maintained some degree of Russian language schooling which helps to prevent isolationism. On the down side, Kyrgyzstan gets much of it’s news, information and popular culture filtered through Russian sources. Russian mass media is very much and ever increasingly dominated by the Kremlin.
Russian TV consists of 3 or 4 stations, none of them independently owned, and MTV Russia. When I turn on the tube, I am usually in search of a plot driven action movie. It is the best way to passively learn language that I can stomach (the only thing better is soap operas or talk shows for colloquialisms). Actually the “poppier” a media product is, the better a language tool it usually makes. Pop products are simple, catchy, unintelligent. This brings the comprehension threshold down to reasonable levels.
I tend to avoid MTV in the states as if it were contagious. Russian MTV has all of the characteristics of American MTV that I despise in spades. Its only redeeming quality is that it actually plays music videos. This is made up for by the fact that it only plays hip-pop and rap videos of the lowest caliber. It is easy to miss the glaring artistic deficiencies in the product when it is so thoroughly smothered in sex.
Here I have to digress for just a moment and admit my many biases and allow for some culturally differences. First the differences, Russians have a different take on feminine beauty than the West. Basically, few Russian women criticize the objectification of women. Many would appear to embrace it. Some attribute this to the Soviet system that officially promoted the “liberation” of women by demanding they both work and take the lioness’ share of the burden of caring for a family. Some might say it is because of the instability follows the Soviet collapse that women are all too happy to trade feminist ideals for the stability of traditional roles. Some would say otherwise. Whatever the reason, women are hyper-feminized relative to Western Europe and the States. On Russian TV stations scantily clothes attractive young girls sing songs and dance seductively. These shows are on most all of the time. What surprised me most was not their existence but their outstanding acceptance and even popularity. In Russian and here in Kyrgyzstan men and women, young and old have asked how I enjoy the “spectacles.” The question is not only free of the bitter irony that would dripping from such a question if anyone I knew from home were to make a similar inquiry but is actually almost rhetorical. It usually seems to be granted that I am naturally blown away by the artistic brilliance of large breasts and a fit butt waxing and waning to a drum machine’s beat while computer generated sounds accompany the vocalist. A computer program could write a program to write the sounds. Just take a music theory 100 class and make the computer match the chords to the drum machine’s beat.
Before I got carried away, I was trying to say that the standard of beauty vs. sexy is different as is the value of musical complexity. These spectacles, instead of being popular only among boys/young men and hyper-hormonal youngsters of both sexes, are embraced with pride by many people of many backgrounds (even Soviet university professors).
I’ll take what ever is behind Door number 2: Baseless feelings of intellectual and moral superiority! YESSSSSSS.
Just as I was getting comfortable in my one man apartment with ivory trimming, who should appear before me in Russian MTV form but Jeffery Sachs, Columbia Economist, author and general thought provoker. With him, his Lovely Assistant Angelina Joleigh to tour Africa and chat about transactions costs and other obstacles to development on a journey that has the heart warming and wrenching in turns. And here I am, in Bishkek, watching a minor lesson in development economics with African examples on MTV, but in Russian, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
The utility of celebrities in promoting responsible, sustainable and realistic policies is… tricky. But, I can confidently say that without Angelina (UN Ambassador of Goodwill) the message would not have made its way to where-ever Soviet TV sets are being quickly replaced by vastly superior imports. If we have to build a new pantheon of celebrities of sports and screen to link our increasingly atomized selves to a larger conceptual community, we might as well have them use their powers for some human empathy. The vanity of our divinities can wear thin after a while.
So not all hope was lost. The show ended and what followed was another episode of the same series. This time “Diaries” documented the ascent of The Pussycat Dolls to fame and fortune. Reassuringly disgusted once again, I renewed my search for that elusive plot driven action movie. On Russia’s official state TV network aired a show about a crime fighting German Shepard and his human partners. On the other channel I found another episode of some Russian show that features Russian secret agents, disguised as Arabs, taking names and kicking “Wahhabist” butt in the Middle East. So, yes, these is a Russian equivalent to Team America… only they take it seriously. I was not sure whether to laugh or cry. I always try to laugh.
Despair, sweet hilarious despair.
Since moving into my new one-man apartment, I have had so much too much time to learn about television in Kyrgyzstan. Despite the fact that Kyrgyz is lauded by linguists as being the purest of the Turkic tongues, Kyrgyzstan has been less zealous about language purity than other Central Asian nations. On the upside, this means that Kyrgyzstan has maintained some degree of Russian language schooling which helps to prevent isolationism. On the down side, Kyrgyzstan gets much of it’s news, information and popular culture filtered through Russian sources. Russian mass media is very much and ever increasingly dominated by the Kremlin.
Russian TV consists of 3 or 4 stations, none of them independently owned, and MTV Russia. When I turn on the tube, I am usually in search of a plot driven action movie. It is the best way to passively learn language that I can stomach (the only thing better is soap operas or talk shows for colloquialisms). Actually the “poppier” a media product is, the better a language tool it usually makes. Pop products are simple, catchy, unintelligent. This brings the comprehension threshold down to reasonable levels.
I tend to avoid MTV in the states as if it were contagious. Russian MTV has all of the characteristics of American MTV that I despise in spades. Its only redeeming quality is that it actually plays music videos. This is made up for by the fact that it only plays hip-pop and rap videos of the lowest caliber. It is easy to miss the glaring artistic deficiencies in the product when it is so thoroughly smothered in sex.
Here I have to digress for just a moment and admit my many biases and allow for some culturally differences. First the differences, Russians have a different take on feminine beauty than the West. Basically, few Russian women criticize the objectification of women. Many would appear to embrace it. Some attribute this to the Soviet system that officially promoted the “liberation” of women by demanding they both work and take the lioness’ share of the burden of caring for a family. Some might say it is because of the instability follows the Soviet collapse that women are all too happy to trade feminist ideals for the stability of traditional roles. Some would say otherwise. Whatever the reason, women are hyper-feminized relative to Western Europe and the States. On Russian TV stations scantily clothes attractive young girls sing songs and dance seductively. These shows are on most all of the time. What surprised me most was not their existence but their outstanding acceptance and even popularity. In Russian and here in Kyrgyzstan men and women, young and old have asked how I enjoy the “spectacles.” The question is not only free of the bitter irony that would dripping from such a question if anyone I knew from home were to make a similar inquiry but is actually almost rhetorical. It usually seems to be granted that I am naturally blown away by the artistic brilliance of large breasts and a fit butt waxing and waning to a drum machine’s beat while computer generated sounds accompany the vocalist. A computer program could write a program to write the sounds. Just take a music theory 100 class and make the computer match the chords to the drum machine’s beat.
Before I got carried away, I was trying to say that the standard of beauty vs. sexy is different as is the value of musical complexity. These spectacles, instead of being popular only among boys/young men and hyper-hormonal youngsters of both sexes, are embraced with pride by many people of many backgrounds (even Soviet university professors).
I’ll take what ever is behind Door number 2: Baseless feelings of intellectual and moral superiority! YESSSSSSS.
Just as I was getting comfortable in my one man apartment with ivory trimming, who should appear before me in Russian MTV form but Jeffery Sachs, Columbia Economist, author and general thought provoker. With him, his Lovely Assistant Angelina Joleigh to tour Africa and chat about transactions costs and other obstacles to development on a journey that has the heart warming and wrenching in turns. And here I am, in Bishkek, watching a minor lesson in development economics with African examples on MTV, but in Russian, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
The utility of celebrities in promoting responsible, sustainable and realistic policies is… tricky. But, I can confidently say that without Angelina (UN Ambassador of Goodwill) the message would not have made its way to where-ever Soviet TV sets are being quickly replaced by vastly superior imports. If we have to build a new pantheon of celebrities of sports and screen to link our increasingly atomized selves to a larger conceptual community, we might as well have them use their powers for some human empathy. The vanity of our divinities can wear thin after a while.
So not all hope was lost. The show ended and what followed was another episode of the same series. This time “Diaries” documented the ascent of The Pussycat Dolls to fame and fortune. Reassuringly disgusted once again, I renewed my search for that elusive plot driven action movie. On Russia’s official state TV network aired a show about a crime fighting German Shepard and his human partners. On the other channel I found another episode of some Russian show that features Russian secret agents, disguised as Arabs, taking names and kicking “Wahhabist” butt in the Middle East. So, yes, these is a Russian equivalent to Team America… only they take it seriously. I was not sure whether to laugh or cry. I always try to laugh.
Despair, sweet hilarious despair.
Monday, January 01, 2007
New Years in Bishkek, Predictions for 2007
New Years in Bishkek is a pretty big deal. There are costumes, Old Man Winter and a full supporting cast and fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks. Television showed many a Russian spectacle. Kyrgyz TV rang in the New Year in proper public access fashion. Funding for Kyrgyzstan's television channel must be pretty grim.
For the New Year, I moved into a new place. Living by myself has given me more time to read, study and write as well as more space to move around in. I am sure that eating meals solo will get old before it gets fun but I am enjoying it for now. The one-roomer has a huge main room plus a bathroom and kitchen. Newly remodeled in the southern hub of the city for only $150/mo. I also trimmed my beard.
I am trying to figure out how I will use the skills I have so far tried to accumulate. Assuming I learn some languages, have a good grasp on expedition leadership and a little emergency medicine, where do I go from there? As my time in Bishkek is almost half-way up, I also see my time "experimenting" and trying to "see how I like it" as coming to a close too. That is all subjective (many amazing 30 year olds do not know what they want to do with their lives and have already done so much), but I nevertheless want to have a more well articulated purpose to work towards. Ideas abound but the implications in terms of time, dedication and relationships with friends and family scare me. Everything worth doing seems too terrible and anything where happiness seems assure also appears uninteresting (which would undermine the original happiness). So I will ask anyone over 40 who is reading thin, does all of life seem like a rapid succession of destiny transforming cross-roads or is this mostly a hullucination of the 20-30 year phase?
I wrote a few predictions for the year(s) to come. I have never done it before and I think it will be fun to see how I am doing in a year.
I think 2007 will be a year for moderation of US policy having over-stretched ourselves of late. Because of a necessarily more hesitant US, the rest of the world will have at it. Russia, haveing held itself together and steadily rebuilt some semblence of internal order, will reassert itself as a as a regional hegemon, built upon gas. Russian nationalism, however, will begin to look skeptically at flashy Moscow. The provinces will demand their dues (which the kremlin/oligarchs will be uninterested in providing), stoking the flames of the ancient Moscow-periphery divide.
Things in Somalia will get nasty as Islamists, though removed from power, find more subtle ways of raising money and waging war. Look for a repeat of every other attempt to crush a rebellion whose main grievence is being crushed.
The EU will continue muddling its way towards governance and look inward, rather than outward for direction. A disillusioned Turkey will move towards Islam, but a conflict with the PKK /Northern Iraq in the East will keep the secular nationalist heart beating strong.
In Iraq all hell will break loose, faster and more hellishly than expected. The breakpoint will be Turkey's intervention into Northern Iraq in the Spring. This will discredit the central government's ability to govern to such an extent that all observers and parties will be forced to admit civil war. For anything to become governable to the Sunnis will have to sort out their secularist pan-Arabian/Revolutionary Sunni Islam identity issues. Eventually (certainly not in 2007), some kind of a three entity solution will come forward. As there are geographic consistencies to ethnic distributions, a partician will come out of it. Bagedad will be Shia after a Sarajevo-like phase.
China will face more riots and structural constraints on its harmonious ascent. China's gilded age will be recognized as such as the CCP starts to lose more control over what happens in the country. Barring a huge foreign policy crisis, however, China will continue to grow. Human rights abuses in Xinjiang will become more widely known after the release of Kite Runner's film version (to be filmed in Western China's Xinjiang province).
2007 will be a clutch year for Kyrgyzstan as it tries to sort out all of the implications of the new constitution. There is a contest for power a foot. I think political Islam will become more popular, especially in the South now that a Southern Kyrgyz has been in office and failed to deliver anything but graft. North-South elites will continue to bicker over the government while frustration builds among the people.
In Latin America things will generally get better and better, more and more stable politically. However, the inequity of NAFTA and CAFTA will become more apparent. People will be howling about in year within 5 years the US will be forced to substantially change its stance on farm subsidies or undo the trade regime it built.
Globally, there will be greater consensus and more concerted action on global warming.
I do not know anything about anywhere in Africa and I will not pretend to. (Somalia fits in with the cycle of Islamist revolution from Iran to Algeria of the 20th century).
Through the course of my life-time I think that issues like global trade, global warming and reform at the UN will start to form the proto-type for a regime that regulates the interaction of states in a manner similar to how a state regulates the interactions of actors within a given country. Realism is a fact of life, however, over the long run it is the best interests of the powerful to create a system that stabilizes and justifies the status quo. In order to do so, however discretion and atonomy will be given up. The US will be more keen on this project in a year or so, surveying a messy and expensive result of unilateralism. The appearance of chaos usually underlines the need for order. Order implies restraint, which in turn puts a premium on the freedom of disorder. We will move into an ordering phase by the time another president is sworn in.
Happy 2007!
For the New Year, I moved into a new place. Living by myself has given me more time to read, study and write as well as more space to move around in. I am sure that eating meals solo will get old before it gets fun but I am enjoying it for now. The one-roomer has a huge main room plus a bathroom and kitchen. Newly remodeled in the southern hub of the city for only $150/mo. I also trimmed my beard.
I am trying to figure out how I will use the skills I have so far tried to accumulate. Assuming I learn some languages, have a good grasp on expedition leadership and a little emergency medicine, where do I go from there? As my time in Bishkek is almost half-way up, I also see my time "experimenting" and trying to "see how I like it" as coming to a close too. That is all subjective (many amazing 30 year olds do not know what they want to do with their lives and have already done so much), but I nevertheless want to have a more well articulated purpose to work towards. Ideas abound but the implications in terms of time, dedication and relationships with friends and family scare me. Everything worth doing seems too terrible and anything where happiness seems assure also appears uninteresting (which would undermine the original happiness). So I will ask anyone over 40 who is reading thin, does all of life seem like a rapid succession of destiny transforming cross-roads or is this mostly a hullucination of the 20-30 year phase?
I wrote a few predictions for the year(s) to come. I have never done it before and I think it will be fun to see how I am doing in a year.
I think 2007 will be a year for moderation of US policy having over-stretched ourselves of late. Because of a necessarily more hesitant US, the rest of the world will have at it. Russia, haveing held itself together and steadily rebuilt some semblence of internal order, will reassert itself as a as a regional hegemon, built upon gas. Russian nationalism, however, will begin to look skeptically at flashy Moscow. The provinces will demand their dues (which the kremlin/oligarchs will be uninterested in providing), stoking the flames of the ancient Moscow-periphery divide.
Things in Somalia will get nasty as Islamists, though removed from power, find more subtle ways of raising money and waging war. Look for a repeat of every other attempt to crush a rebellion whose main grievence is being crushed.
The EU will continue muddling its way towards governance and look inward, rather than outward for direction. A disillusioned Turkey will move towards Islam, but a conflict with the PKK /Northern Iraq in the East will keep the secular nationalist heart beating strong.
In Iraq all hell will break loose, faster and more hellishly than expected. The breakpoint will be Turkey's intervention into Northern Iraq in the Spring. This will discredit the central government's ability to govern to such an extent that all observers and parties will be forced to admit civil war. For anything to become governable to the Sunnis will have to sort out their secularist pan-Arabian/Revolutionary Sunni Islam identity issues. Eventually (certainly not in 2007), some kind of a three entity solution will come forward. As there are geographic consistencies to ethnic distributions, a partician will come out of it. Bagedad will be Shia after a Sarajevo-like phase.
China will face more riots and structural constraints on its harmonious ascent. China's gilded age will be recognized as such as the CCP starts to lose more control over what happens in the country. Barring a huge foreign policy crisis, however, China will continue to grow. Human rights abuses in Xinjiang will become more widely known after the release of Kite Runner's film version (to be filmed in Western China's Xinjiang province).
2007 will be a clutch year for Kyrgyzstan as it tries to sort out all of the implications of the new constitution. There is a contest for power a foot. I think political Islam will become more popular, especially in the South now that a Southern Kyrgyz has been in office and failed to deliver anything but graft. North-South elites will continue to bicker over the government while frustration builds among the people.
In Latin America things will generally get better and better, more and more stable politically. However, the inequity of NAFTA and CAFTA will become more apparent. People will be howling about in year within 5 years the US will be forced to substantially change its stance on farm subsidies or undo the trade regime it built.
Globally, there will be greater consensus and more concerted action on global warming.
I do not know anything about anywhere in Africa and I will not pretend to. (Somalia fits in with the cycle of Islamist revolution from Iran to Algeria of the 20th century).
Through the course of my life-time I think that issues like global trade, global warming and reform at the UN will start to form the proto-type for a regime that regulates the interaction of states in a manner similar to how a state regulates the interactions of actors within a given country. Realism is a fact of life, however, over the long run it is the best interests of the powerful to create a system that stabilizes and justifies the status quo. In order to do so, however discretion and atonomy will be given up. The US will be more keen on this project in a year or so, surveying a messy and expensive result of unilateralism. The appearance of chaos usually underlines the need for order. Order implies restraint, which in turn puts a premium on the freedom of disorder. We will move into an ordering phase by the time another president is sworn in.
Happy 2007!
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