Category: Personal Page 52 of 59
So, I’m trying to put together a trip that involves a Europe to South Asia segment. I don’t give a @#!) about using US carriers – all I want is a search result containing the various flights between, say, Frankfurt, Germany and Karachi, Pakistan. You’d think it would be easy, with the relatively mature technologies of Expedia, Travelocity, or Kayak.
No go. Not at all.
And everything else I’m finding is all single-country-centric (e.g., makemytrip.com, which I would recommend for anything involving India). But what do you do when you’re trying to get to a market that is relatively underserved?
I refuse to call a travel agent.
On the other side of the world, Sunday mornings are quite pleasant, this time of year.
I spent a fair part of my early years living quite near the Iron Curtain. My childhood included more than the usual fun of bike rides and playing in the woods – it also included tanks rolling through the street in front of my house, calls in the middle of the night that had my father disappearing for weeks, and planning where I would hide out when the Soviets came.
On one of our school field trips, we went to Observation Point Alpha. We were told that if we stepped past the chain fence, we might get shot. Not a chainlink fence, but these little white posts connected by a single white chain. In retrospect, it was clearly an exaggeration by our guide, but most everyone in my class was aware of all the people that were shot trying to escape East Germany. If they would shoot their own people, they’d most certainly shoot us. When it was my turn to look through the binoculars, I wanted to see the faces of the people who would do that. It was hard to get a good view, but what I did see was this:
they looked just like us.
This is no great observation today, but do you remember what it was like, then? The awful evil scary Communists, lurking around every corner, waiting to kill us all? They looked just like us. It’s hard to describe just how much my world view has been shaped because of that field trip. Not necessarily because of what I saw and felt that day, but because what I saw and felt that day has moved me to question what I’ve been told, and keep asking questions, until I am satisfied.
One of the questions I asked, not so long after that, was of my German teacher, Herr Schmitt. Most of my American teachers would give slight variations on the same pat answer when I asked them about East Germany – “It’s a communist country, and communists are bad. They don’t believe in freedom.” Well, that’s fine, but what does that mean? That was a question that Herr Schmitt, alive when the walls went up and the curtains came down, was willing to answer.
East Germany was a very sad place, he said, because everyone was afraid. They were afraid of Americans, afraid of the Soviets, and afraid of each other. You couldn’t do anything in East Germany without someone knowing about it. If you did something someone thought the government would not approve of, they would tell on you, and it would go in your file. They keep files on normal people, like you and me. And those files are how the government watched people. If someone said or did too many things that the government didn’t like, the Stasi would come and throw them in jail, and their families would never hear from them again.
I don’t recall being entirely convinced, at the time. I mean, how could someone just disappear like that, without the family and everyone else doing something about it? And keeping records on everyone like that? Just seemed silly. Obviously, I didn’t understand.
What got me thinking and writing about this today? This:
[M]illions of Americans and foreigners crossing U.S. borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by U.S. government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals.
[ . . . ]
Virtually every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is scored by the Homeland Security Department’s Automated Targeting System, or ATS. The scores are based on ATS’ analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.
Even better?
The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.
It all feels . . . distantly familiar.
(Personally, I’ve shied away from using it, thinking it mostly unhelpful. Ms. McWhorter gives me good reason to reconsider.)
Update: Lest you be tempted to skip it, take note of this paragraph:
We have become such “good Americans” that we no longer have the moral imagination to picture what it might be like to be in a bureaucratic category that voids our human rights, be it “enemy combatant” or “illegal immigrant.” Thus, in the week before the election, hardly a ripple answered the latest decree from the Bush administration: Detainees held in CIA prisons were forbidden from telling their lawyers what methods of interrogation were used on them, presumably so they wouldn’t give away any of the top-secret torture methods that we don’t use. Cautiously, I look back on that as the crystallizing moment of Bushworld: tautological as a Gilbert and Sullivan libretto, absurd as a Marx Brothers movie, and scary as a Kafka novel.
I well and truly hope she is wrong on that – if America “no longer ha[s] the moral imagination to picture what it might be like to be in a bureaucratic category that voids our human rights”, then my America is no more. And while I admit that, at various points in the past few years, I have been near sure that that is true, I am not yet ready to accept it.
The European Commission has now suggested suspending accession talks with Turkey, in response to Turkey’s continued refusal to open its ports to (Greek) Cyprus. I think suspension of talks would be a big mistake, but at the same time, I wholeheartedly agree with this:
“It is Turkey that must adapt to the EU,” Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. “It’s not the other way around.”
It would take many pages to explain my own conflicted thoughts on what the EU is, and ought to be. For example, it think it should still only comprise the 15 countries it did in 1995, and have stayed at that point until it was clearer on its own purpose and future. But we are where we are, with the EU essentially offering membership, and Turkey clearly wanting it. If Turkey wants it, it is up to Turkey to meet the standards and requirements of the EU. To its credit, it has done quite a bit, and I truly hope that Turkey can gain membership. But the EU needs to be firm in its stance (while remaining continuously engaged), and not be swayed by the pressures of public perception.
And after Turkey becomes a member? The EU enlargement needs to stop. There is far too much internal work to be done to spend any more time on expansion.
I may have spent my last dollar on Apple hardware. Which is a shame, really, as I’ve really come to like OS X. But the hardware failures are getting ridiculous. Putting aside the three iPods I’ve gone through in as many years, I will soon be getting the screen on my Powerbook replaced for the THIRD time.
I bought my Powerbook new in 2004, and ended up with one of the (many) screens exhibiting white spots. Finding that I couldn’t live with it, I sent it in for a screen replacement, which Apple gave me with no fuss. Unfortunately, the screen they gave me was only able to fully illuminate itself on one half of the screen. Since this was only really a pain when it was dark, and I wasn’t especially interested in being without my laptop for a week, I did learn to live with it. Last week, however, it had to go in for service for *another* hardware issue (RAM failure). So I asked them to replace the screen. They agreed, with just the slightest bit of prodding. I was very happy to get it back yesterday (and also for the almost-complete* backup that I’d done just before it went into self destruct mode).
And then I decided to spend a little time photo-editing on it today, which required a closer look at the screen. At least ten pixels or subpixels stuck in the on position. I don’t even want to bother looking for the dead pixels. It seems that Apple’s pixel policy is intentionally obfuscated, but I expect that this is such an obvious case that they won’t give me much trouble in getting it replaced. But that really isn’t enough to make up for the fact that Apple has yet to give me a fully working screen, despite the original $2200 purchase price and three attempts.
When I first decided to take a crack at OS X, I was prepared to pay a premium for both the hardware and software. I wasn’t, however, prepared to pay a premium for substandard hardware. Ah well, at least I’ve gotten (several times) my money’s worth out of the (overpriced, I first thought) AppleCare program . . .
*everything but an incomplete draft of a work of fiction. probably for the best.
Yes, Mr. Bush, they hate us for our freedom. That’s exactly it.
Apparently, this video has been up since September. In the context of all of the death and killing in Iraq, it’s not a huge deal. But daily scenes like this? Is why at least a few of those kids will likely soon be fine with, if not actively contributing to, more US troop deaths. More background at this UK news site (you didn’t think the US press would report this, did you?)
My local bike shop is Revolution Cycles. Good shop, good people. A recent WTOP story, however, reminds me of my one great disappointment with them. Apparently, Mr. Bush and I have our bikes serviced at the same store – I most recently saw his Trek there after he ran into someone and broke the guy’s leg in Scotland. They’ve also got what I thought was an extra that he gave them (with Presidential seals and everything). I tried to get them to sell it to me, but no dice. I would have paid a pretty penny for it. And then I would have used it for fundraiser rides. “Sponsor George W. Bush’s bike in the NOW/Equality Virginia/Sierra Club Ride! He won’t be there, but his machine will – just like real life!” But the WTOP story tells me that I wouldn’t have been able to swing it:
Misiera said he has turned down offers from collectors of up to $21,000 for his store’s spare presidential bike.
“We could probably get $25,000 for it on eBay,” he said. “But of course we can’t sell it. It has the seal of the President of the United States.”
Ah well.Â
Another no-knock warrant gets an innocent killed.
92 years old. Dead from a gunshot.
(This happened a few blocks away from my old apartment in Vine City. Anyone kicking down pretty much any door in that neighborhood has a high probability of getting shot.)