These are pretty much all my totally emo feelings put into a totally non-emo sarcasm. My existence is not to be looked down upon, unless you are doing so in an ironic way to further fuel my love for EMOtions:

Breaking news from CNN: Iraq contractors make billions on the front line.

Private military contractors are earning billions of dollars in Iraq — much of it from U.S. taxpayers. Business is booming for those willing to tackle one of the most dangerous jobs on Earth. Lucrative U.S. government contracts go to firms called on to provide security for projects and personnel — jobs that in previous conflicts have been done by the military.

Gee, REALLY? No one ever thought about this before. Ever.

In the world of corporate sponsored think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has taken the cake for capitalistic chivalry. A recent AEI event discussed the idea of utilizing free market forces for the national organ system.

Think about that again: they are suggesting that receiving and distributing ORGANS should be decided within a free market system. As AEI pragmatically states:

Although donor altruism is an inspiring virtue, generosity as public policy falls short. Panelists at this event will discuss incentives, including payment, as a viable remedy to enhance the supply of lifesaving organs.

In a nutshell: your liberal, wishy-washy ideals are nice and all, but us rich people deserve unhindered access to your delicious organs through the guise of free market access. Basically, who would get organs are those who could pay for them, and if you can’t pay enough for one, well, than you probably don’t care enough or don’t deserve it in the first place. It’s the ultimate vision of Dick Cheney’s America: you are only worth how much you have in your bank account.

I’m waiting for FedEx and watchin’ the US get destroyed by European football. Czech is good. Work has been boring since I haven’t really started/had anything to do. I’m getting a laptop and people from Columbia, MD who I work for are arriving today, so hopefully they will give me a lot to do. I hate being bored at work. Here’s a poem:

Oh fuck me
uh…fuck me!

oh me oh mine
to us in time
fucking dreams
in which I’m dyin

why so heavy love
starved from food so
rich but richer still
poorer hearted broke

I see your face when I wake
so love sad oh love glad
to know your name to have
a kiss at last alas alone

dance with me tetrahedron
for me heathen godess dance
full-hips shake lips and dance.
and propose to me each night

the party was super fun. I drank too much everclear. I thought the show went well. My NY friends had fun, they enjoyed the dancing. I was glad to see people I hadn’t seen in a while. Wooo!

So I accepted the job at IU today, woo! It’s good to be employed. I would have liked to be in NYC, but it’ll be there when I need it. And any way, to quote Diane: “I’m so over New York.” She’s kind of a bitch sometimes, but it’s also endearing, sometimes. I think I’m gonna go visit her in Pittsburgh soon, in July maybe.

I have to get a car for work. I’m gonna go to the VW dealer, I want to get a Jetta TDI. 50 mpg yo, plus I can refine biodiesel from vegetable oil if I ever need a new hobby. It’s a profitable hobby. I also want to give some money to: http://www.kiva.org which is a micro-loan company I mentioned a bit ago. It’s such a cool idea, a bottom up aid org that uses capitalism for good instead of evil. It’s also great in that I get the money back and can regift it. I like being able to see how my money is helping.

And daddy never hugged me (like that), courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

As if being a loveless transvestite pirate hooker wasn’t bad enough to begin with:

Salon has had a successful week (and I apologize for not writing things up earlier). The best article delved into the world of politicized birthright trips Jewish-Americans receive to visit Israel.

What frustrates and saddens me about the birthright trip is that it is DECIDELY political, and also discriminatory. The very name itself promotes an exclusive agenda; people have the right to visit Israel for free based on being borne into a Jewish family, perpetuating the very cultural privileging that the Jews were once victim to.

Further, the trip quickly turns into a political ploy, rather than an authentic reason for individuals to reconnect to their identity. See this thinly hypocritical remark by one of the directors of Birthright Israel:

Taglit bats off any accusations of having a political agenda. “I don’t think it’s political for Jews to support Israel,” says Mark. “It should be an integral part of every Jew’s identity.”

This past weekend I went up to NYC, and apart from the things that typically make a weekend there wonderful, I was witness to similarly disconcerting events.

The first of which was an event held by Independent Viewpoints that sought to discuss Sunni and Shiite relations in Iraq with a keynote speech by Noam Chomsky. The undercard to this event were four panelists moderated by Ann Goodman.

On the left were two women and on the right, two men separated in the middle by Ms. Goodman. Ms. Yaqoob, a British woman who recently was elected to city council in Birmingham, spoke with poise and much thought, traits that were shared to a lesser extent by Mr. Shallal, a founder of the Peace Cafe in Washington DC. The two other speakers, an American cleric named Shaykh Ibrahim Kazerooni who was fairly invisible during the panel, and the other a Dr. Anisa Abd el Fattah, who is the individual that troubled me the most.

You know what they say about brothers with big mail boxes? Big mailbox, big welfare check!

I’ll let this video speak for itself otherwise: