The President of Pakistan

I like the President of Pakistan. I say this knowing nothing about him except for what I've seen on the Daily Show. But on the Daily Show he was self-possessed, witty, and articulate, despite being offered twinkies by John Stewart(of course, if John Stewart offered me twinkies, I'd do my best to be witty and articulate as well...but I'm not the President of Pakistan). The crowning moment was when Mr. Stewart asked Mr. President of Pakistan who would win an election in Pakistan right now: George W. Bush or Osama Bin Laden. Ballsy, Mr. Stewart. Ballsy. Mr. President of Pakistan answered the only way he could: "I think they'd both lose miserably" (or something very close to that.)

Well done, Mr. President of Pakistan. Well done.

Why Kevin St. Laurent is a god among dancers

Kevin St. Laurent & Laura Keat - Montpellier Swing Dance Festival 2006 I don't really care for the partner. She's good, but only because she's dancing with one of the most inspired dancers ever (although I will say this: if she's the same girl who won the 05' PHXLX Solo Charleston Comp, she's got some serious moves on her own...this just isn't my favorite display of them). He's just brilliant! Keywords: lindy hop, swing dancing, jitterbug

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Kevin & Frida with Zack & Carla - BarSwingOna 2003 (Barcelona, Spain) Nobody's even watching Zack & Carla!! How can you with all that fun and energy going on between Frida and Kevin?!! One of the coolest obviously lead-follow non-choreographed dances ever. Keywords: lindy hop, swing dancing, jitterbug

Guns Germs and Steel My Ass

Once again I'm attempting to read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Once again, I find myself wanting to throw the book across a room like a crying baby. Ugh. I can't even get through the introduction without shaking my fist in anger! Mr. Diamond proposes to answer the question of why european powers were able to conquer basically the entire world and why the vanquished cultures of Africa, Indonesia, North and South America and Australia still feel the socio-economic effects of that conquest. He attempts to do this by using a New Guinea as a sort of test or model site. That's my first problem. History isn't a science. History doesn't work on tests or models. It just doesn't work. It can't. Every historical event is both specific and ephemeral. What once was is gone forever and you can never recreate it in some sort of 'test'. Comparing an event to a model is to necessarily hinder your understanding of it, since you are bound by the model. So testing is out. So is modeling. They don't work for history. And the study of the conquest of the world is, of course, a historical one. It happened in the past over a rather long period of time.
That's the other thing...Mr. Diamond seems to assume that the conquest of the New World, Africa, and Australia all happened at roughly the same time with the same effect. Its simply not the case. You can bet your ass that the British convicts that first colonated Australia left a considerably different mark on Aboriginal society than the Spanish conquistadors did on South America. So what's the point of comparing the two? They happened at considerably different times under considerably different circumstances. Comparative history has its place, but don't use apples to understand oranges.
There's one other thing that irks me about this book, and that's Mr. Diamond's assumption that all european conquests ended in cultural loss. To some extent, I suppose that's true. Loss is sort of part of any war of conquest in terms of people, infrastructure, indentity and culture. But the loss of culture isn't isolated to just the conquered. The conquerors are just affected by cultural exchange as the conquered. South America is again the perfect example. Just how Spanish is Mexico? How Portuguese is Brazil? Sure, they speak the language of their conquering people, but who associates g-string bikinis and white sand beaches with Portugal?!?!
I guess that leads me to my one concession for Guns, Germs and Steel : that geography really does play a part in how history moves, that there are other forces besides those of humans that influence how history unfolds. I like that. I like that he realizes that and has caused others to realize that. But these idealogical gaps between he and I make it hard for me to read his book. I have a feeling I'd feel the same way about his book Collapse. So I'm going to put Guns, Germs, and Steel away for now and maybe someday I'll be able to get past chapter one without wanting to punch somebody in the throat.



And if you want to read a cool book on ecological history, read Ecological Imperialism by Crosby. Much better.