(no subject)

[ewt]

Is this real?

I'm getting pretty close to just giving up and boycotting goods made in the US. Except that all the manufacturing that actually makes profit there is done by 8-year-old girls in Thailand anyway, and there are some things I won't do without that I probably can't buy without some US involvement.

I don't boycott lightly or often; I figure it's better use of time and energy to focus on the good than to focus on the bad.

My brain is feeling very fragile. Brainhacking today was difficult and upsetting; I think reasonable progress was made but right now my brain is in the "OW STOP POKING ME" stage.

I think I shall buy a bowl of chips. Yes. Chips here are good, and potato products make everything better.


The rest of this evening:
My brain is a bit too fried for real work, but I'm going to try to sort out schedule-y stuff for next week's teaching. Many of my students are off school for Succot and as they're missing so many Sundays I'm going to try to get up on Thursday to do some teaching.

Tomorrow:
-horn lesson, then class, then meeting with S. re: Mammoth Project, then Horn Class. This is going to be a long and tiring day - I have hardly played at all this past week because of my hurty elbow, and while I think I'll get through okay, it's not going to be easy. I think I'd best get there early and do a long slow warm-up, then go to the library and find some music. I'm not going to have time to go home for lunch and I haven't been organised and packed one so I guess it's a Pie Day. MMmmm. Pie.
-laundry. I'm way behind on it at the moment.

Thursday:
-doctor's appointments in the morning (mental health update followed by cervical smear. I'm sure you can sense the unbridled joy); not worth going to Trinty beforehand so I'll have to go straight there afterward to practise. Possibly working on Mammoth Project the rest of the day, although I'd really like to make Thursday afternoons Sewing Time. If I'm not working on the project, I'll be doing some tidying, because I can't do any sewing until I've tidied anyway because there isn't anywhere to sew. Go me.
-more laundry.

Friday:
-In the morning, straight to Trinty to get some practising in.
-practising music for Suzuki school stuff on Saturday
-the Big Push with tidying; I want to make the living room presentable and the kitchen less cluttered. For the kitchen this is going ot mean taking everything off the surfaces, one at a time, cleaning the surfaces, and then putting things back/away (as sensible). For the living room... I'm not sure. I think I'll have to do 15-minute intervals or something.
-more laundry.

Saturday:
-Suzuki school. Possible pubbage (Porterhouse), but I really ought to get home and practise. Dinner party in evening.

Sunday:
-Gardening.

I've just been brought a bowl of chips. This place is heaven.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Most Americans barely (if at all) know where (or what) the UK actually is. A boycott would be completely futile -- no one here would ever hear about it, and economically speaking it really would just be a drop in the ocean. The local news channels are mindbogglingly crap, with even the best of them basically coming across as a cross between TV Quick and Hello magazine. On the other hand, Bush is on his last legs. Two years and he's out. What's more important is that congressional elections are happening a month or so from now, which is why he's trying to ram as much legislation through congress as possible while he still can -- the writing on the wall is that, after the election, he's not got a chance of doing that.

The scary thing is that rumours of an 'October surprise' are going around at the moment; basically that something moderately spectacular and probably unpleasant for quite a lot of innocent people will be stage managed within the next month ahead of the election. The North Korea bomb test thing is a possibility, but people have also talked about an Iran invasion. Nothing terribly good will come of it, so I'm very much hoping that rumours are just rumours.

The web site you linked should probably be read with quite a large pinch of salt, however -- it's not exactly even handed. However bad the legislation might be, it's quite another matter here to actually make it stick for any length of time. Unlike the UK, the US has mechanisms for judicial oversight such that bad laws can be thrown out, which is probably why the wording of this legislation tries to block that route. However, in practice, what is likely is that Bush will be very much sidelined toward the next election to give his successor room to manoevre in terms of campaigning, and that any new government (of whatever party) would most likely stamp on the worst excesses of the previous administration's legislation. In the mean time, it's not nice, but it's likely to be temporary.

Of course, the federal government pays my wages, and the US military part-funded my PhD, so my perspective is maybe a little different. My impression is that there are a lot of people trying to do the right thing here for all the right reasons, but the current administration are probably not really doing the place any favours right now.

(Sorry for the anon, I don't want this comment to be googleable. I'm pretty sure you know who I am, however!)