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Month: November 2000
Conversation
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Classmates.com
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White Star Discussion
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Speech
Last night I went to hear Elie Wiesel’s third and final lecture in the 2000 BU lecture series, and as seems to be the tradition, he spoke about contemporary times. I arrived late (I waited for about 25 minutes for a B train — about five D trains, three or four E trains, and a couple of C trains went by in the meantime.) and had to sit in the back section. Two rows ahead of me and to my right sat a black couple — I would say “African American” in some stupid effort to be PC, but I don’t know that they were Americans. They could have been “African French” or even simply “African” — for what any of those labels are worth. Anyway, an interesting thing happened during the lecture, and it happened not once but twice. When Wiesel began talking about the troubles in the Middle East, he said essentially that these events showed the world what kind of man Arafat truly is, namely as someone who can’t be trusted. “When you see the generosity of Barak’s offered concessions . . . “ he began, and the black woman in front of me began shaking her head in disagreement, her brow wrinkled to show her disapproval. She sat slightly to the right of me and was watching Wiesel on the monitor to the left of me, so I could also see her eyes, which she rolled several times as if she couldn’t believe what Wiesel was saying, as if he were saying something as ridiculous as, “All the world’s troubles are due to Arafat.”
This reaction really didn’t shock me. “Perhaps she’s just a person with extreme leftist views, one of those who really feel that Israel as no right to exist as a state,” I thought. I didn’t really think any more of it for a few moments.
Wiesel continued by condemning the violence in the Middle Ease, and then violence in general. “Where words leave off, violence begins,” he said, continuing by essentially saying, “There is never an excuse for violence.” — surely, I would have thought everyone in the room would have agreed with that. Yet I glanced at the black woman and once again she was shaking her head, as if to say, “What a fucking idiot — of course there’s a time for violence. Sometimes that’s the only course left for someone to take.”
I was tempted — though I did not act on this temptation — to catch up to her and the individual she was with and ask them what they found so offensive in what Wiesel was saying, particularly about violence. Maybe they were Muslims who support the Intafada. Who knows. Who cares, in the end.
Monday I met Chhavi downtown to watch a film (You Can Count on Me — I give it a 7 or 7.5 out of 10, with its realism being its greatest strength.) and so I rode the Orange Line down to Back Bay and Mary accompanied me. For some reason she mentioned that she heard we were getting raises — everyone. She even said that Kali herself had said something about it. The figure she’d heard? A huge one percent pay increase. Wow. That’s a whole $350 a year. Shit — I don’t know what I’d do with that kind of money. Surely she must have heard wrong, for that amounts to less than $30 a month. Anyway, I mentioned to her that Chhavi had been encouraging me to ask for a raise, and then she said it — the bombshell — “Yeah, you should. I mean if Michael Lacoy asks for a raise every week, why shouldn’t you?” Now if what she said earlier was true, specifically, that the new editors are getting offered $40,000 to attract “more qualified” individuals, then he’s already making something like twelve percent more than I make. And he’s only been working there for a few weeks — less than three months, I think. That’s fairly ridiculous. If it’s true, of course, and I can’t assume it is.
I can “assume” (to continue with parallel grammatical structure) that I haven’t gotten a raise since I started working there, and that I’ve been working there for almost a year now. Marlon told me he got a $5,000 raise at one point, and that everyone in the tech team has gotten a raise. But the other side of production? I guess we’re just a cliché dime-a-dozen. Or perhaps $480,000 a dozen.
On to another topic — Edyta. I haven’t written to her since I left Poland, and that was almost six months ago. At first I purposely didn’t write to her because I didn’t know what to say. Now I want to write to her, but I’ve no idea what to say. What I need to say is, “Sorry. That shouldn’t have happened, and I’m afraid that the fact that it did has ruined our relationship.” I guess in the end, it’s just not that important to me. I hesitate to write to her because I don’t want all the work that would be required to try to get things back to normal between us.
Other news — I got a message from Kamil Sunday (though I didn’t actually read it or even know about it until I got to work Monday morning) and he told me that Jasiu has agreed to re-employ him. His plans are to finish out the school year, then look for a job in Kraków. Barring that, he wants to try to come to the States for a while. So it’s now conceivable that I could go back to Lipnica (provided Jasiu gives me a job) and neither Kamil nor Janusz would be there — just as Chhavi predicted. And of course Kinga would be off at university most of the time, leaving me fairly alone. Does that disturb me? A little, to be honest. But more than anything it makes me think, “I need to get cracking so that I can tell everyone of my intentions.”
Returning?
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Still More Return Thoughts
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A Mess of Nonsense
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Election 2000
Today is Election Day. Today America chooses its next president. And to be honest, I couldn’t care less. No matter who wins, nothing essential is going to change in America. While Clinton likes to take credit for the current economic prosperity, there’s much more to it than his presidency that made it possible. It’s like Regan and Bush taking credit for the fall of communism, as if they accomplished what six or seven presidents before had all tried but failed.
I honestly hate to hear what F is going to be saying today. “I’ll kill myself if Bush wins.” Unless
- Bush gets to appoint two or three Supreme Court Justices in the next year;
- someone gets a case challenging Roe vs. Wade before the Supreme Court within the next year or so after that;
- they decide to overturn Roe vs. Wade; and,
- Fahy gets pregnant at that point or later and wants an abortion,
then nothing is really going to change in her life. We’re all solidly middle class folks and we’re not really going to feel anything.
Yesterday at work was hellish — especially in the beginning. I had the disgusting realization that my job consists of sitting in front of a computer all day long. That’s one of the main reasons I try to write in here in the morning now — otherwise, I won’t do it. I don’t really want to come home and flip on the computer when that’s what I’ve been doing for the last nine or ten hours. Anyway, I got in and my password wasn’t working, so I spent the first thirty-five minutes of my day waiting for someone from IT to show up and re-set my password so I could get something done. Add to it the fact that in general I hate my job and it’s not difficult to see why my day got off to such a shitty start.
I had a thought yesterday about going to Lipnica. I remember trying to figure out whether I should break up with K or not and it suddenly occurred to me — the desire to break up with K is enough.1 I was trying to justify it, trying to legitimate it, when it had all the legitimation it needed. Now I’m experiencing the same thing with this desire to go to Lipnica. I keep trying to think of some way to “sell” it to C, to convince her that it’s for the best and all that nonsense. Yet I’m just doing the same thing — I’m just trying to make it sound plausible, trying to make sure that I have a response to every objection she has. In other words, to make it seem as logical to her as it seems to me, to make her say, “Oh, I see. Well, in that case, you should go. Absolutely — no question whatsoever.”
Last night we went to see Wonder Boys then stopped for sushi at Gyuama’s on Boylston afterward. The movie itself was okay — it seemed to lack direction at some points and I found that to be a little tiring, but overall I liked it. Dinner was good — I was surprised at how filling the sushi was. But that was about the extent of our evening — fairly boring in many ways, I guess. There’s a lot we could talk about, but I just don’t have the guts to bring it up.
Things like what Mona and Shrikanth said when they came over to dinner Sunday don’t help: it’s a great place — you have to stay here for as long as you can. True enough, but I don’t want not to go to Lipnica just because I don’t want to give up a nice apartment. That’s the heart of the problem — I hate living in a place where nice yet affordable apartments are so hard to come by. I’m sick of living in a place that has such an inflated opinion of itself that a two bedroom place can cost $1,000 a month and leave me thinking, “Wow, that’s a good deal.
Time to get ready to go.
With 15% reporting, here’s the results:
| Electoral Vote | |
| Bush | 185 |
| Gore | 193 |
| Popular Vote | |
| Bush | 52% (10,193,077) |
| Gore | 46% (9,085,897) |
It seems that there’s a real possibility that the seemingly unthinkable will happen: the candidate more people want as president will lose. Is that true democracy? If Gore wins on electoral votes but not on popular votes, Fahy, Bishop and others will be thrilled — but if the opposite were to happen . . .
The electoral college is nonsense anyway.
Literally, moments later:
| Electoral Vote | |
| Bush | 186 |
| Gore | 197 |
| Popular Vote | |
| Bush | 51% (15,041,768) |
| Gore | 47% (13,850,417) |
And Nader seems to be getting the support he needed:
1 That was six years ago. I find that difficult to believe now. It seemed like it took six years to make it through the first year. Now I’ve no idea where Kathe is, and I don’t really care to be honest. I finally realize that you can’t hold on to every single relationship in your life. It’s only natural that you drift apart after some time.
More Returning Thoughts
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Election Thoughts
I really get tired of the notion some like to express that life will not be worth living if Bush wins the election. Fahy said something about being “very scared for my life” if Bush wins, then made a joke about people having to “stop me from killing myself if Bush wins.” She’s solidly middle class living a fairly typical American life — her life will probably won’t be even slightly different if Bush wins. The most that will happen is she will have to pay more or less taxes — depending on whether you buy Bush’s “plan.” But it won’t result in drastic curbing of personal freedom; even though he opposes gun control, I doubt that his presidency would result in lots of people running around with guns “legally.” In fact, I bet if I asked her, “Just how exactly will your life deteriorate if Bush wins — give me three concrete examples,” that she might not be able to provide any real reason why she’s saying this except that she’s liberal and doesn’t like the idea of a Republican — any Republican — running the country. She’s playing the role of a liberal, middle class, liberal-arts educated, white, pro-choice, Democratic woman.
Thoughts on Visit
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