Still alive. Still mostly sentient.

In the best of times I have difficulty writing at any great length about any subject.  Right now I am struggling just to write short essays for my classes.  So yeah.  Life's not bad, but my brain just isn't cooperating with my attempts to keep up with this blog.

Bleh.

See you later.

Inspiration at last!

Life has been stressful lately, and I haven't really been able to work up the perfect combination of inspiration, enthusiasm and mental clarity in order to write a half-assed blog post.

Today that all changed.

Perhaps you have seen those vending machines that give out cups of coffee?  Today I purchased a cup of coffee from such a machine, and behold!  The machine gave me all of my money back for no reason.

Truly this is an amazing day.

Territorial Pissing

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/24/greek_neo_nazi_party_sets_up_ny_office/

"Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn has opened up an office in New York, the Greek Reporter reported this week."

The semi-ironic thing is that this "invasion by foreigners" has my blood riled up and I feel ready to fight them.

Good month to be a gamer, if you can find the time.

Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2, Faster Than Light, and Don't Starve.

Damn.

I also have to study for classes, scratch out a social life, remember to walk the dog occasionally,etc.

Hhmmm feels like I'm forgetting to mention something important that is sucking up a lot of time also....

No tolerance for nationalists.

I've been arguing with fellow leftists about the way the Quebec elections have played out.  Short story is that the disruption caused by the student strikes and civil protests (over a large number of grievances) has enabled a nationalist party to take power from the liberals in the regional government.

As Socialist Worker sums it up:

The Liberals' defeat can be traced to that defiance. But the Parti Québécois, which has just won, is not an ally of the movement. The new government will probably seek to negotiate a smaller fees increase with the agreement of the less militant student bodies. At any rate, the movement has long been about more than fees.

Unmentioned in that article is that Parti Québécois is a separatist and francophone nationalist party.

"Oh, but they are so Left Wing!" - My friends and peers exclaim.

Yeah, sure.  Whatever.

These people usually take a very principled stand for international solidarity, and it scares me to see them uncritically calling this election "a total victory" for our politics.  Undoubtedly the defeat, even if only temporary, of the tuition hikes in Quebec is amazing; but the fact that that victory has propelled an ethnic segregationist political party into power is bitterly distasteful, and may well prove to catastrophic to the Canadian left.

Oh FFS!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/28/aurora-shooting-relief-fund

From that link (emphasis added):

Family members of 11 of the 12 who died in the shooting on 20 July joined relatives of some of the injured at a news conference in which they disclosed increasingly rancorous relations between them and local organisations purporting to help them. They complained that although the funds had been raised to support victims and their families, they had been entirely cut out of decision-making process over how the money should be used.

[...] 

The website of the fund states explicitly that "it does not make grants directly to individuals, but to non-profit organizations offering assistance to those individuals". 

When Teves protested that the families wanted a robust voice over how the funds were allocated, he said he was told that they should start their own money-raising charity.

I'm back, but not to save the Universe.

See what I did there in the title? *lame, self-satisfied chuckling*

Anyway, was gone for a few weeks on vacation.  My mind is still gleefully empty thanks to the seemingly endless flood of margaritas and interesting people (the two may be related somehow).

I'll chime back in later once I get re acclimated to Wisconsin and caught up on what's been happening in the world.