Welcome to Trashcanistan

Last Day of Work

2006-03-01T23:58:00.000-08:00

So tomorrow will be my last day of work at the CRRS... The university only pays its work-study students to work until the first week of March. So, come the third, I'll be on the dole.

In other, better news, I met with one of my professors today and he said he might have some research work to throw my way for a project that he's doing about human rights.

Wow... work that's actually in my field. That would be awesome.

But, when all is said and done, I'm sure I will come to miss the endless Erasmus.

Readin' Week

2006-02-23T14:42:00.000-08:00

So it's reading week here at the ole U of T and I'm doing me plenty a readin' 'bout the Cold War and the USSR.

Not too much else going on. Unfortunately.

Mr. Collins goes to Ottawa?

2006-01-02T12:57:00.000-08:00

Hmmm.

The stress of finding a job when I graduate is starting to get to me.

Well, not the stress of finding a 'job' per-se. I'm sure I could get a job buffing floors or whatever no problem. Rather, it's the stress of finding a job that I'll LIKE. Or at least, more realistically, one that I won't hate.

I've applied for a couple of jobs in Toronto with the Provincial Government, and am planning on applying for a couple more with the Feds in Ottawa. I think that I would much prefer working with the Federal Government (I've never really *enjoyed* working for the Province) but, sadly, working for the feds would require me move to Ottawa. And who wants that? Not me. I would rather live in Peterborough than Ottawa.

Damn it. Why can't the capital of Canada be Toronto?? It's the only city in this country that actually matters, anyway.

That's right. I went there.

Sigh. Oh well. Maybe I'll end up moving to Ottawa and never leaving. I'll become a senior federal apparatchnik, buy a house in Rockcliff, and have a bunch of spoiled children.

Party party

2005-12-01T15:28:00.000-08:00

My work, the U of T Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, is having its Christmas party tonight.

I'm totally going to party like it's 1499.

Uh - oh...

2005-08-05T00:51:00.000-07:00

Watch out... Here comes the blog-typical music post. Every blog seems to have one. Or several. This is mine.

Lately I've been finding myself getting more and more into "Indie" music. A lot of the tunes that I have been listening to this summer are from bands that are classified as being of the "indie" type. I'll be out running or watering my rhubarb plants, listening to Metric or the Bravery and being happy as a clam.

I don't know exactly when this trend started... Was it the start of the summer when I got the Final Fantasy, Bloc Party, Client and other albums from Dave? Was it when I got into Metric and Mates of State after seeing their stuff on the internet? Was it last fall when Dan showed me his (then new) Arcade Fire CD? Was it last August when I bought the Broken Social Scene album and Ed and I went to their free concert at the Lakeshore? Was in second year, when Richard and I went to a Flashing Lights concert? Was it in OAC when Jon, Tom and I (but, to be honest, mostly me) would sing Placebo as we walked home from school? (Though why I liked Placebo, I'll never know...I'm not an androgenous British metrosexual. At least, I wasn't the last time I checked...)

Actually I think it goes back way further than that. The first music videos I can remember actively seriously liking were Common People and Disco 2000, both by Pulp, way back in the later part of the mid ninties (and I still like them today). And I think that style of indie-ish brit pop has a lot in common with the type of music I'm starting to like these days. It's just been a style of music I really like - lots of synthesizer and/or a unique sound (I also really like the big indie orchestra sounds of bands like Broken Social Scene and the Hidden Cameras). Maybe this love of synth music dates back to hearing my dad's tapes in the 80s.... but maybe not (neither of my parents were ever really into New Wave). Whatever my reason for liking it, it is nice to find a genre of music where I like most of the bands.

I never really got into rock as a genre. In highschool there were certain bands I liked well enough (like Matthew Good Band and the Head Stones), and others I didn't like at all (like I Mother Earth) but I was generally abivalent towards most bands, not really liking or disliking them, and certainly not caring either way. When Joel, who is both a music expert and a huge rock fan, would me play songs from whatever new band he was into I would often like one or two tracks, but my general response would always be a "meh it's ok."

Finding a general genre of music from which I enjoy most of the songs and actually get excited about also makes finding new music I will like easier. (Like I knew that I would like Death From Above 1979 before I heard them.) I wished, for example, that I could have gone to last month's Hillside Festival - and when I checked out the list of bands playing there (along with with ones I did know like the Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene) I found some that I really like (the Hidden Cameras being a prime example).

The problem is, I don't look or act like those main consumers of idie music - the hipster. I noticed this when Leonard and Brianna and I went to a Final Fantasy concert last month. There I was, wearing my gap pants (I think almost all my pants come from the gap), amidst a sea of ironic t-shirts and asymetrical haircuts. Though I kinda like it, I've never bought into the hipster athestic. But you know what? That doesn't bother me at all. And I don't plan on purchasing an Atari lunch box or some tapered jeans any time soon.

Resurrect'd

2005-06-22T18:56:00.000-07:00

After some (but not much) consideration I've decided to resurect this blog. I just got a digital camera, and I was thinking that I could use Trashcanistan to post pictures and stuff from my trip to the Gleneagles summit.

We shall see...

Err...ummm.. errr... ahhh... read "The Guns of August"

2005-03-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

You're The Guns of August!

by Barbara Tuchman

Though you're interested in war, what you really want to know is what causes war. You're out to expose imperialism, militarism, and nationalism for what they really are. Nevertheless, you're always living in the past and have a hard time dealing with what's going on today. You're also far more focused on Europe than anywhere else in the world. A fitting motto for you might be "Guns do kill, but so can diplomats."

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Hey, Kennedy asked all of his advisors to read it.

And I do enjoy pretending to be Kennedy...

Hurray!

2005-03-18T15:13:00.000-08:00

I had a long day yesterday.

Exhausted after a night of not a lot of sleep, I had to rouse my groggy carcass for class at 10 am. After class I TTC'd it down to the Scotiabank tower and take an ear poppingly fast highspeed elavator up to the 58th floor to meet a woman I was interviewing for an article for the G8 Online (Note: the view from the 58th floor is AMAZING... I felt like I could see all the way to Oakville). After the interview (which went really well), it was back to school for a G8 Research Group meeting, then several hours in Robarts to work, alternatingly, on my Peace and Conflict Studies paper and my Barclays Capital job application, all the while hungry from a lack of dinner and suffering from a head-ache from being so bloody tired.

At about 8:45 I left to go home. I decided to take the books I was using with me, so into my bag went eight ultra heavy tomes on social psychology, and out of the library I staggered. I arrived home tired, stressed, hungry, head-achey, and grumpy only to find an acceptance letter from the MA program I applied to sitting on my chair. Hurray!

Screw the essay, I figured, and spent the rest of the night playing Cranium with Brad, Sarah, Katie, Andrew, and Cara. Then Brianna came over, wearing the COOLEST home-made St. Patrick's Day shirt ever (she had drawn a picture of James Joyce on a green t-shirt) and bearing a St. Patrick's day cactus for Sarah, Cara and I. It was a nice end to the day. :-)

Finished!!

2005-03-16T22:51:00.000-08:00

Horray!

Today, just before 5pm, I finished and, more importantly, handed in my HIS 401 Vietnam War essay. While I was writing the it, I occasionally thought of the time Gareth told me that I "would make a really good revisionist historian." Made me smile.

Essay Summary
Hours Spent Writing: Many
Pages, not counting endnotes: 20
Paragraphs: 62
Lines: 517
Words: 6,381
Characters: 32,669

Now I only have two papers left to write (unfortunately one of them was due today, and so is already late...). Meh. After this last essay (which I really enjoyed writing) my blood is angried up... Angried up for writing!

Below, for the curious/bored/academically inclined, I have posted the ultra abridged version of my essay.

First Sentence
During the Cold War, the vast majority of policymakers in the United States of America and the Soviet Union viewed both the international system and developments which occurred within that system through the twin lenses of bi-polarity and superpower competition.

A Quote from North Vietnamese Leader Ho Chi Minh
"We have a weapon every bit as powerful as the most modern cannon: nationalism! Do not underestimate its power."

Christopher's Favourite Part... I (heart) John Foster Dulles
The United States had never been enthusiastic about the Geneva conference for American officials did not like the idea of negotiating with communist China. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles exemplified this line of thinking. Though he only attended the conference briefly, Dulles was reported to have said that the only way he would meet with Zhou Enlai was if their cars collided and later, when the two statesmen actually met, Dulles allegedly refused to shake Zhou’s hand.

A Quote from Kennedy/Johnson Administration Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara
"I […] thought I knew that […] Ho’s North Vietnamese government [was] a communist ‘domino’ that had already ‘fallen’ to the Sino-Soviet bloc. My senior associates in the government […] were equally convinced that Russia and China sought to use Vietnam as a stepping-stone to communist control of South East Asia. […[But what in reality? Hanoi was no domino! […] These fundamental misunderstandings would ultimately lead to a tragic war. In 1961 the North Vietnamese leadership and the Kennedy administration saw each other through this thick fog of simplistic Cold War rhetoric. […] We [American and North Vietnamese leadership] therefore became to one degree or another culpable for the oncoming tragedy."

Last Sentence
This stand, taken by a leadership that did not fully understand the motives of the opposition they were facing, led to the United States entering the Vietnam War.

Ugh

2005-03-16T08:17:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning, before my alarm, with dreams of North Vietnam flitting through my sleep addled mind. Feeling kind of stressed out, I'm looking forward to being done this paper...

Bed time

2005-03-16T04:01:00.000-08:00

After several more hours of writing about the early stages of the Vietnam War, my essay nears completion. Huzzah!!

Now I'm off to sleep (finally) for a few hours before I get to wake up and write some more.

And when THAT's done, I get to start a SECOND essay!

Yay!!!

Man, this makes me like sleep.

Trip to Boston

2005-03-16T01:21:00.000-08:00

Last month, during the latter half of reading week, I traveled with the U of T Model UN society to Boston to participate in the Harvard University Model United Nations. Amy, one of the girls in the U of T delegation, sent me some pictures from the trip, and I've just gotten around to posting them below.

At the conference we had some time to see the city, which was really nice. Boston is a great city. It's expensive, but it's very pretty and very historic. Ed and I took a self guided walking tour, and we saw all sorts of stuff: the State Legislature, an old Puritan worship house, a historic cemetary where Paul Reveere, Benjamin Franklin, Mother Goose, and John Hancock are interred. We also saw a whole lot of beautiful old buildings, strolled through the Boston Common, and ate some raw local oysters (... at a restaurant, at dinner, we didn't just pick them up of the street during our walk).

I was happy being there. I really REALLY like New England. I have ever since my family took a trip to Cape Cod when I was 7. I don't know why exactly, but I just feel at home there.

Learning sustains me!

2005-03-16T01:09:00.000-08:00

Learning sustains me!
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

Christopher besieges the Harvard Arts and Science Graduate School building. All I want to do is learn 'bout the Cold War...

Let me in!

2005-03-16T01:07:00.000-08:00

Let me in!
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

Maybe if I had a giant sack of money they'd let me in... or at least name a building/stadium after me...

Chris and Friends at the famous Harvard Statue

2005-03-16T01:06:00.000-08:00

Chris and Friends at the famous Harvard Statue
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

That's John Winthrop's statue (I think). Apparently, people do things to one of the feet (like possibly urinate on it). Good to hear that maturity is alive and well at the most famous university in the world.

The Harvard Yard

2005-03-16T01:03:00.000-08:00

The Harvard Yard
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

Yep, this is the famous Harvard Yard. It's just sort of a big green lawn...

Me at one of the best universities in the world (looking like a tool)

2005-03-16T01:00:00.000-08:00

Me at one of the best universities in the world (looking like a tool)
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

I wish I could draw a rainbow coming from hands and arcing over my head... (or lightining, if I wanted to be Raiden)

And a blue bird on my shoulder.

Yum yum

2005-03-15T20:30:00.000-08:00

Dinner tonight:

1 Microwaved organic burrito
1 Microwaved Michelina's Macaroni
1 Raspberry Yop (not microwaved)
1 Dried Fruit Bar (Flavour: Apple something)
1 Wunderbar chocolate bar

All purchased at the Shopper's Drug Mart across the street.

Wow... I need to buy groceries.

Lack of structure makes Chris something something

2005-03-15T11:48:00.000-08:00

Gah! We are now throughly enmeshed in one of my least favourite times of year... essay writing season.

While I love to write, research, and think critically, I think that I have some HUGE time management problems. This means that I spend most of my time at this point in the academic year stressed out and cursing the fact that I didn't start working a month and a half ago, while hunched over my computer at three in the morning trying to elucidate a series of complicated and convoluted theoretical arguements. Bah. I blame the fact that I don't do well with a lack of structure in my life.

Next year, for grad school (assuming I get in), I am either going to have to get my act together or, not being able to hack it, drop out of school and run off to sea.

Oh my!

2005-03-12T04:21:00.000-08:00

I just realized something!

The place where I go to school, University College (of the University of Toronto), sounds totally made up! It's like saying you went to Highschool Secondary or something. It's like New College... It was built in the 60s, it's not new at all (in fact, it's kinda old).

I'm on to you University of Toronto College namers, you and your tangled web of lies!

Sketchy is as sketchy does

2005-03-12T04:11:00.000-08:00

A couple hours ago I just got back from a highly sketchy, though fun, party... It was being held by a girl that I know from the G8 Research Group, and I only knew a few people there (most of the people were New College people).

But what do I mean when I say sketchy? It should be noted that sketchy does not mean bad. Everyone needs a little sketchiness in their lives now and again, and the party was fun. But by sketchy, I do mean:

1) People smoking inside
2) Couples going into the bathroom
3) People climbing onto icy roofs to pee down 3 stories
4) People climbing over rickety balconies
5) Sticky, sticky floors
6) Lots of REALLY drunk people

But, truth be told, I think I am classifying what was essentially a normal, undergraduate house party as "sketchy" because I am still in awe over the party that Alex, Brianna, Dan, Brad and I went to last weekend. It was in the biggest, nicest mansion that I have ever been in, up in Forest Hill (right across the street from UCC). What with the open bar, gourmet birthday cake, and cavernous indoor pool, after that most normal house parties would seem a bit sketch...

Besides, the party I went to tonight wasn't NEARLY as sketchy as some of the things I saw in Kingston (Joel's house's kitchen included!).

;-P

Particle or Wave?...Or BOTH! (Whoa)

2005-02-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

Jake, Brad and I got together tonight (which was great- the three of us don't hang out all three of us nearly enough) and went down to the Red Room for sandwiches and beer.

Jake, who studies particle physics, started talking about the properties of light after Brad attempted to demonstrate the double slit experiment using a fork, a napkin and some candle light... It was so interesting. Sometimes I get jealous of my science friends for the sheer coolness of what they study. I think that's why I secretly love my astronomy course... Afterall, after finishing my second year half course on the "history of astronomic discovery", maybe I'll be able to finish the debate on howlight exists having both the properties of a particle and a wave.

Part the second

2005-02-13T23:58:00.000-08:00

Part the second
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

The sequel.

That was the last I had of the rum.

Two, or possibly three, of the people in this photo did end up, after much further drinking, emptying the contents of their alcohol soden stomachs. I, luckily, was not one of them (that one shot was all I drank... though we did smoke up later).

Part the first

2005-02-13T23:56:00.000-08:00

Part the first
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

Ian recently mailed out the pictures he took at the party he and Ian held at the their apartment a few weeks ago.

This is a group shot (of a group shot...) that we former Wallace residence guys decided to do together. Though I see them all on a regular basis, it was to hang out with all the guys at the same time, something we don't get the chance to do as much as when we lived in rez. because of people's different schedules.

Brad, in his love for awful booze, brought this cheap and utterly disgusting Caribbean rum (or maybe it was floor polish...). We decided to do a celebratory group shot.

Yum. It tasted awful, and reminded me why it is that I don't like rum...

I (heart) democracy

2005-02-07T06:36:00.000-08:00

I (heart) democracy
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

From the U.N Society trip to the Georgetown model U.N in D.C a couple of months ago.

I wanted to go and frollic on the steps of Congress so much. Alas, the security fence meant it was not (an amendment) to be.

Delegation

2005-02-07T06:34:00.000-08:00

Delegation
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

U of T, at McGill.

Now, on ABC!

2005-02-07T06:33:00.000-08:00

Now, on ABC!
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

This looks SOO much like a sitcom picture...

Alex - the blue collar slob type comedian
Joanna - his very attractive wife
Shaloma - the wife's best friend/the friendly neighbour
Jenny - Alex's work rival.

Off off Broadway

2005-02-07T06:31:00.000-08:00

Off off Broadway
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

We look like the cast of some hip new show.

Maybe a musical about Joy Divison?

"Where's the joy???" Now off off broadway.

U 'N' Me Glamour Shot.

2005-02-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

U 'N' Me Glamour Shot.
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

Went to the McGill model U.N the weekend before last. I was Nickolai Vicktorvich Podgorny on a Cuban Missile Crisis simulation that they were running.

It was great fun... We (the Soviet side) won on the first day, lost on the second, and stopped nuclear war on the last day (so everybody wins).

My character was also arrested for scheming against Khrushchev (which I was doing IN SPADES). As I was dragged out of the room by 10 Annapolis Naval Cadets in dress uniform pretending to be Soviet police, I grabbed the door frame and yelled "I regret Nooottthhhing".

lol

Murther most foul.....

2005-02-07T06:25:00.000-08:00

Murther most foul.....
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

Last month we had a murder mystery dinner party, These are the suspects, minus Sarah and Brad. I also think that this looks like a movie poster for one of those "dramas" about bed hopping intellectual 30 somethings...

Yeah, I'm the next Denis Arcand.

On Future Tales of Future Things

2005-02-07T05:16:00.000-08:00

Hmmm...

Last Monday or Tuesday Sarah, Pernima, Katie, Sarah Lyons and I went out for drinks to celebrate.

We were celebrating because that day both Sarah and Katie recieved acceptance letters to their top choice gradschools. Sarah got into the M.A archeology program at a Belgian university at which she really wants to study (located, it turns out, in same the town where they brew Stella Artois) and KT got into the joint M.D/PhD program at U of T, which accepts only a TINY number of people (and, after 8 more years of schooling, will make her Dr. Dr. Marchington... and also a whole truck load of cash money).

Couple that with Caleb's recent acceptance to Harvard Law, and Richard's acceptance to Cambridge, and a lot of my friends are finding out what they are going to be doing next year. I think that's a good think, having that knowledge of what the immediate future holds. (I think that KT in particular is lucky about the fact that she now knows what she is going to be for the next decade or so.)

I just got my application for the U of T MA History/International Relations in last week, so I have a while yet to wait.

And then there were two...

2005-02-07T01:52:00.000-08:00

Brad and Chris
Originally uploaded by Cpaulcollins.

So I finally figured out how to post photographs.

This one, marking my blogging phtographic debut, is from Jake H.A's party on Friday night. Brad and Dan and I met at my house with plans to go over. Unfortunately Dan, who is a bit of a lightweight when it comes to drinking liquor and smoking illicit
substances got really drunk/high and, part of the way to the party, realized he'd forgotten his bag at my house. He ran off into the night in search of it, never to return (later I learned that, in his altered state of mind, he'd become lost and wandered down to Queen street).

And then there were two.

When a sadly Danless Brad and I got there we entered into a gigantic party in really small house. Most of the people at the party were friends of Jake's roommates, and like his roommates were in second year, so we did not know very many people there. But we did meet some people. Beth from was there. Caleb was there, and he told me that he's been accepted to Harvard Law School (!!!).

We didn't end up staying for that long, and later that night Brad and I, as well as our friend Gareth (who Brad, Beth, Jake and I all have Cold War history with) left to go for some Chinese food. At the Chinese place Gareth showed Brad and I the wonders of "Cold Tea" (when you order a beer and they bring it to you clandestinely in a tea pot...). Interesting...

Anyway, this is Brad and I at the party.

U.N. Me I

2005-02-06T16:42:00.000-08:00

So I am now a published journalist.

(Well, technically, I've been a published journalist for years from the time I spent working at the "Examiner", but that's beside the point...)

Eve is the arts editor of "Nightviews", the Ryerson newspaper for evening and part-time students (and a paper that, I'm told, very very few people read). A couple of weeks ago she was tasked, on top of her normal duties, with doing a piece on United Nations reform. I volunteered to write the piece for her.

The article came out last week, and, I must say, I find the idea of having a piece in the largely unread school paper of a university that I do not attend kind of amusing.

But seriously, the United Nations is in need of some reform. In its current iteration the United Nations is, I think, largely useless in ordering soverign states to do things (like stop human rights abuses). This is because it was made to stop inter-state conflict, not the civil wars that seem to have arisen like brushfire in the past 15 years. This makes it rather ineffective at guaranteeing security. But, before we write it off, we should realize that the U.N does do all sorts of good things at the non-security, functional level (like working with the poor). Talking about abolishing the U.N outright is, in my opinion, neo-conservative garbage.

I think that the U.N does needs to be reformed if we want it to be a security institution. If we don't reform the U.N, we should rely on other bodies like NATO for security purposes. I went to a talk the other day given by General Lewis Mackenzie (ret'd) where he much the same thing.

My Nightviews piece is below.

* * * * * *

“The UN is, and has always been, an abysmal failure,” proclaimed a recent Toronto Sun editorial on proposed United Nations reform, crowing over the UN’s high profile failures in Rwanda and Bosnia and provocatively suggesting that the venerable international body should be scrapped.

But no one who seriously wanted to learn about the United Nations would be foolish enough to base their opinions on the rubbish churned out of the offices of the Toronto Sun, a partisan rag that has never met a lurid crime story it hasn’t loved to splash garishly across its cover. The truth about the current state of United Nations is far more complicated then the infinitely facile conclusions at which the Sun editorial would have us arrive.

To fully understand the issues and challenges facing the United Nations at the dawn of the 21st Century, it makes sense to look at where it has succeeded and where it has failed.

First lets talk about failures. Since its founding in 1945, the United Nations has largely failed to prevent conflict. Massacres around the world, from East Timor to the Darfur, have stained the earth red with the blood of innocents while the United Nations has not taken action. But is that the fault of the United Nations? Not really. It is more the fault of the countries that are a part of the United Nations. Saying that a largely powerless organization whose main purpose is to bring states together and provide a forum for them to discuss issues is at fault for the inaction of its constituent members places far to much blame on the UN and far to little on its members. Whatever the UN says or does, stopping global crises requires that individual countries take some action.

But there are problems with how the United Nations operates in bringing its members together to co-ordinate and plan.

Most of the UN’s trouble revolves around the Security Council, the only body of the United Nations that has the power to pass binding resolutions (including providing the authorization to go to war, which the Bush administration sought several years ago for the American invasion of Iraq).

The Security Council, tasked with maintaining global peace and security, is comprised of 15 member states, 10 of which are elected for two-year terms from the General Assembly (the essentially powerless body where all UN member states sit to discuss issues). The other five Security Council members (which are known as the P 5 and consist of the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France) have permanent membership and any one of these permanent five has the power to veto any resolutions proposed by the council.

There are two problems with the Security Council being structured in this way.

The first problem is that the current Security Council structure is no longer an accurate reflection of the world’s balance of power. Ignoring recently emerged powers like India and Brazil means the Security Council structure is more a reflection of post war 1945 than modern 2005.

The second problem is that this P 5 structure allows some powers, those with the ability to exercise a veto, to block any resolutions they do not approve of - a measure which vastly reduces the ability of the U.N to act freely to solve global crises. Tension between the veto wielding USA and USSR during the Cold War led to almost constant Security Council deadlock (the UN only intervened in Korea in the 1950s because the USSR had temporarily walked out of the Security Council). It has also been deadlocks in the Security Council that have permitted the occurrence of some of the worst atrocities of the last fifteen years.

Another notable problem with the United Nations is the size and ponderousness of its vast bureaucracy. Over the years the working of international body has become mired in bureaucratic goop, which makes it harder than it should be to get things done. What’s more, this large and unwieldy bureaucratic colossus leaves the door open for corruption, the recent scandals surrounding the criminal mismanagement of the UN’s Oil for Food program with Hussein’s Iraq being a perfect example.

But the United Nations also does a great deal of good, mostly through its functional bodies. While less publicized than the wrangling and bitching that often paralyze the Security Council into inaction, few can dispute the good works of the UN’s on the ground organizations, bodies like UNICEF and the World Health Organization that work to better the lot of those in need. (The World Health Organization, for example, took a leading role in the eradication of smallpox.) While not in the political spotlight, these functional bodies are irreplaceable for how they actually help people on the ground in the areas where help is needed most.

So, then, the United Nations does do good. A great deal of good. But certain parts of it do need to be reformed. Expanding the Security Council by giving some recently emerged powers veto status would be one way that reforms would help. Giving veto status to regional powers like India and Japan has been proposed, though it will likely take a great deal of diplomatic pressure to get the current P 5 states to throw open the doors to their exclusive club. Taking an axe to the worst of the bureaucratic undergrowth and increasing the transparency of the UN’s inner workings would also help to reform the way that the UN operates.

While it is true that the Security Council needs some reform to breath new life into an increasingly moribund institutional framework, that is not reason enough to eliminate a global body that has helped so many of the world’s unfortunate. Let’s talk about fixing the UN before we talk about ditching it.

Hey Hey Hayes

2005-01-26T03:32:00.000-08:00

Went over to Alex's place this evening and watched this DvD he had of cartoons from the 1930s and 40s that had later been banned under the Hayes Act.

Wow.

Cartoons used to be... well...NOT like the Simpsons.

There was this one, I thought it was from the 30s, Alex thought the 40s, that had all these talking vegetables. The potatos, from a bag marked "Paddy's potatoes", were all stereotypical Irish police officers (i.e drunk) and they spent part (most) of the short investigating the abduction of a family of baby carrots by beating other vegetables (suspects) with their batons in a manner that would make the LAPD proud. We both cringed when potato police put the anthropomorphic corn man in the toaster to "pop" the truth out of him, the lemon man in a juicer to "squeeze" a confession from him, and the egg man in a frying pan telling him, in a tasteless reference to the real electric chair, he would "fry". And the animation style was just plain creepy.

This was one of the mild cartoons. I'm not even going to mention the one about "Lazy town". And some people think that Family Guy pushes the line...

While neither Alex nor I are big drinkers, I couldn't help but think that the some rum would have enhanced the surrealness of the whole experience (sort of like a couple of months ago when Brad and I got drunk and watched the Bush Kerry debate).

Collateral Coolness

2005-01-25T10:53:00.000-08:00

In the summer, after the film "Collateral" was released, I read an article in the New York Times that said how the film's director, MichaeI Mann, has always had a finger on the pulse male coolness. After watching the film last night, I'd have to agree; it's a damn cool piece of cinema, both in how it's directed (in a cool manner) and how the characters act (Tom Cruise's Vincent character in particular is one cool cat). Mann, the Times article said, has been doing this for years. Miami Vice (which he created) set the tone for the pastel coloured, unshaven look that dominated much of the 80s "cool male" zietgest. 1995's Heat, also done by Mann, was also a very cool film.

Watching Collateral, and remembering watching Heat, got me thinking about the highly ephemeral and almost ethereal nature of coolness, and how difficult capturing it on film must be without having it seem contrived. Either way, Mann does it and makes a film that is very worth watching. I loved two scenes in particular. One scene, set in an Asian nightclub, is just damn cool. The other, one where Jamie Foxx is talking to a Mexican druglord, is awesome for how it shows two men trying to intimidate one another.

In short, I think people would like it. Joel you would like it because you liked Heat, Tom would like it for the cold, ruthless bad-assedness of Tom Cruise's hitman character (two in the sternum one in the head), and though it doesn't have any samurai, Jon you would also like it.

Rasion D'etre

2005-01-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

Joel has just started a blogspot blog, and I have decided to follow suit.

I'll post things that I find interesting so that good friends I do not get to see on a regular basis (like Joel, Matt, Tom, and Jon) will be able to read them and know what I'm thinking about from where ever it is they happen to be (which in the case of the above gentlemen would be, respectively, Queens, Harvard, Tara's bedroom, and grappling with a ravenous grizzly bear on the top of some icy mountain).

And all this time I thought that the blogging phenomenon was, like, soooo 2004... (and I never fully bought the arguement that the - mostly - tripe in the blogosphere has some significant effect in REALLY shaping the political or cultural discourse in a society).

Oh well. Enjoy!

Welcome to Trashcanistan!

2005-01-22T22:54:00.000-08:00

Stan, when used in a country name like Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan, means "place of."

In April 2002 Steven Kotkin, a professor of history at Princeton University and an academic whose work I really like, published a long review essay in the New Statesman about the sorry state of affairs in many FSU (former Soviet Union) countries. Kotkin wrote:

"around the former Soviet Union, we see a dreadful checkerboard of parasitic states and statelets, government-led extortion rackets and gangs in power, mass refugee camps, and shadow economies. Welcome to Trashcanistan."

Since this is the part of the world to which, along with the history of the Cold War, is the focus of the majority of my academic interest and research, I thought I would name my blog after it.

So Welcome to Trashcanistan!