Maria

Now I know what it’s like to be blonde. Today I wore my moveon.org / Obama t-shirt around the 5th arrondissement of Paris. The reaction was extraordinary. Talk about turning heads. I hesitate to blog about this because for many Americans, the excitement Obama inspires in the rest of the world is a disqualification for the US presidency. But honestly, it would do your heart good to experience first hand the joy and enthusiasm and just plain old-fashioned hope people express when Obama is mentioned.

After too many years of Americans being unpopular abroad, now everyone wants to talk to them and wish them well. My first suitor was a Moroccan builder who flagged me down in the street. He wanted to know if I was American and could vote for Obama. I’m not, so we both fervently shared our hopes about the US election.

Later, in a bookstore, a young woman working there wished me the cheeriest hello I’ve ever received in a Parisian shop. I told her I’m not American and don’t have a vote there, but figured wearing a shirt was one way to say what I think. She said she wished you could get them in France. She asked what date the election was, and talked excitedly about how wonderful it is to see so many Americans walking around the 5th wearing ‘hope’ buttons.

I know there are many in the US who think the support of ‘cheese-eating surrender monkeys’ is something you can do without. But much of what animated the French in opposition to Bush is their almost fan-boy type love for what they see as truly American; an open-hearted curiosity about the rest of the world, and the sometimes naïve desire to make it a better place. Often in France, you get the sense of an old, old culture made weary and cynical by its long experience. Today, on a beautiful autumn day in Paris, America’s hope made an old city feel young again.

First, may I say the triptans are a marvelous class of drug? When you’re wading through a 5 day migraine and liquids, not to mention solid food, are a distant memory. When the right side of your brain wakes you up every hour or two to pound a little harder on the left. When you haven’t been able to complete a sentence for days, but that’s just fine as you can’t leave your house to find any humans to talk to and you wouldn’t be able to find your way back home anyway. When you know, you just know that there’s one last zomig in the house if only you could find it. And then you do.

Joan Didion wrote that she came to regard her enemy, migraine, as a friend. Susan Sontag pointed out that describing illness with military metaphors has certain failings, not the least of which is to make ill people feel defeated. I don’t hold with making an ally of migraine, but I will grant you that the first day after the enemy decamps is a Red Letter Day. Today I am so full of vim and vigour that it seems a shame to waste all that energy on work. (Sadly I have so much to catch up on, I’ll have to.) The world is a bright, clear and shiny place today, even if my 401(k) is worth 53% less than what I’ve spent on it. So be it. Feeling like this, I could work until I’m 106, rather like that cheery nun who hasn’t cast a vote since Eisenhower, and who’s thrown her veil in the ring for Obama.

To business; why are triptans so expensive? Fair enough that nobody knows whether migraines are caused by bad chemistry or bad wiring. (Presumably it all looks the same at the molecular level.) So we’re not quite sure why triptans work so well for some people. But when they work, they are transformative within minutes. In Belgium, a month’s supply used to cost me about $100. Here in the US, my gold-plated insurer gives them to me more or less free. But someone’s making a lot of money either way, and migraine has such a huge impact on productivity/absenteeism that getting the cure for cheap would help hundreds of thousands of people and their employers. When did we invent this miracle drug, and will we be sharing the bounty any time soon?

Some time back, I mentioned in passing that living in Los Angeles has never been my life’s dream. As of last week, I’ve lived here for a full year, and I’m glad to report I’ve mellowed on it a bit. Well, just the decision to put less energy into disliking it helped.

On another CT post of mine today, commenters geo and Delicious Pundit gently point out that it’s silly to hate on a relatively decent place like L.A. I agree. There are worse places to be dragged to by your job. It’s several months since I felt a true twinge of jealousy of a friend whose work took her to Astana for a few years (turns out they have quite good skiing nearby). L.A. has quite a few good things. Among them, Delicious Pundit exhorts me to “come to the Sunday Farmers’ Market in Hollywood and get some avocados and strawberries (Gaviotas, the kind that don’t ship), some tamales, and maybe some watermelon lemonade from the nice people who come down from Solvang.” Which sounds very nice indeed.

The best thing about L.A. is of course the weather. Nuff said. The first moderately ok thing about L.A. actually reminds me of Brussels: it’s a bit crap until you get used to it, but there are lots of good day trips and weekend trips to be made nearby in the meantime. So far, I’ve driven to Ensenada in Baja Mexico, Joshua Tree National Park, a couple of presidential libraries (both Reagan and Nixon are well worth a visit, whatever your political preferences), San Juan Capestrano, Santa Barbara and Solvang, and down the coast to L.A. from San Francisco. There’s no shortage of places to go from L.A., and they tide you over while you wait to find the city less soul-destroyingly ugly. Now that I’ve become indifferent to the strip malls and freeways, I’ve begun to like some of the nicer bits.

Good things about L.A.: many, many outdoor things, 5k and 10k runs every weekend that let joggers explore the city, some good cinemas and lots of cultural stuff scattered around a 30 mile radius. Life for me picked up an awful lot when I got a car and moved away from the office.

Bad things: well, let’s not focus too much on those, but I was surprised at how dirty the sea water is, and it’s a bit sad that so many good, independent book shops seem to be closing down at the moment. (Oh god, reading this back it sounds so Stuff White People Like, I’m mortified.)

I’m drawing a blank, but am sure there are plenty more good things, right?

This is the sort of information request that should be easily searchable, but any search terms I’ve thought to use have yielded a load of dross. So I’m turning to the collective brainpower of CT’s readers.

My beneficent employer, ICANN, has just opened an office in Washington D.C. (I’m still based in L.A., mope, boo, hiss). I’m here for a few days and just realised I don’t know what the authoritative source is for D.C. organizations is. Strikes me it’s the sort of thing we should have around the office.

When I worked in Brussels, it was easy enough to find comprehensive directories of trade associations, member state delegations, lobbyists, NGOs and the rest of the ragtag of organizations that gather around centres of political power. Does anyone know of a publication, ideally paper-based, with this info for Washington-based organisations? And where I might purchase such a tome?

It’s not every morning I’m sipping my coffee, click onto BBC news, and the first thing out of my mouth is “oh, f**k!”. Absent any deep analysis, it is just horribly, horribly worrying that Russia has invaded South Ossetia. We can spend any amount of time on the rights and wrongs of it, and whether the Saakashvili has brought this on himself. But as the news is filtering in, I have a couple of very superficial observations to make.

The current level of hostility has been bubbling towards the boil all year, but I truly thought the Russians would wait for a more obvious excuse to send the tanks in. But why wait when you can slip quietly into an obscure part of the Caucasus on the monster news day that follows the Olympics opening ceremony?

A couple of weeks ago, Russian planes were blatantly flying over Ossetia and the Georgians sent in more of their troops. The Western powers called for restraint. Fat chance. Russia claims to be protecting the Russian minority in Ossetia, but really wants to show the Georgians who’s boss. ‘Restraint’ may be appropriate with two equally sized belligerents. It’s irrelevant when you’re sleeping beside someone big enough to roll over and crush you without waking up. I can’t help thinking that if we’d heard a bit less about restraint, and a bit more to remind Russia that joining the international system means you have be a less obvious playground bully, Putin might have thought twice before he sent the tanks in.

Another observation, this is part of the long pay-back for Kosovo. When Russia was strong-armed on the UN Security Council into accepting Kosovan independence, they made it clear that the precedent would ring out in the Caucasus and indeed any where else the Russians want to destabilize. Again, the rights and wrongs of springing Kosovo free of the Serbs can be argued, and so can the means of doing it. But the outcome is that Russia believes it has a free hand to prop up Russian or other minority nationalities anywhere geopolitically convenient within its Near Abroad.

Finally, to NATO. Georgia’s application was recently put on ice, but not placed sufficiently in the deep freeze to placate Moscow. NATO’s failure to either fully accept Georgia into the family or to expel it into Russia’s brawny arms may have created the moment and the motive for Russia to move. Russia was just as offended by the extended promise of membership to Georgia as it would have been by the real thing, but Georgia was effectively left to fend for itself.

Saakashvili has not played a smart game, that’s for sure. Perhaps thinking the west would stand behind him, or just trying to distract attention from his government’s unpopularity, he has willfully provoked Moscow whenever he had the chance. But here’s the thing; wanting to join NATO is not a provocation. As Russia’s actions have clearly shown, joining NATO was the only sensible thing to do.

*Update* A far more thoughtful piece about the invasion is at commentisfree, though the comments are pretty depressing. If anyone wants to reference a piece explaining things from the Russian point of view (that does more than the recently deleted comment “U ARE A US STOOGE. GEORGIAN ARE WRONG AND STALIN WAS GEORGIAN ANYWAY” etc.), please go ahead and I’ll be happy to link to it.

*Update 2* In that vein, Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money is worth a look. My cousin Daragh McDowell has a far more knowledgeable take than mine on today’s developments. Also, Daragh points to an excellent backgrounder on Ossetia that the redoubtable Doug Merrill posted back in March. Doug is based in Tbilisi as of last week and posted this morning. Le Monde is practically live-blogging.

*Comments closed*

Interesting thought piece in today’s Irish Times; ‘what will life be like for the average Irish middle class family in 2050?’. It is inspired by JM Keynes’ 1930 ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’.

It’s low on specifics but not remotely tech-evangelist, which makes a nice change. It’s clear we won’t all be driving around in space ships and commuting to and from Mars (energy and everything else being too dear). Interestingly, it predicts Ireland will be physically smaller because of climate change, and also more densely populated. One topic it doesn’t deal with is changes to income distribution.

I have a feeling that with higher prices and the predicted period of economic ‘adjustment’ we can look forward to, the gap between rich and poor Irish/Europeans may come to more closely resemble that in the US. (Bearing in mind that Ireland’s income distribution is probably somewhere between continental European and the US. But I’m not an economist and the writer, Stephen Kinsella, is. In any case, his policy prescriptions call for government actions to help the middle class that might mitigate overall income inequality:

“Well, first, they need to help me save. The more the middle class saves, long term, the more their children and their children’s children will benefit. Second, they need to make sure my children survive, by providing a health service which will make the chances of this more likely. Third, the Government must ensure the natural environment my grandchildren inhabit is as conducive to their happiness as possible, while allowing service sectoral growth and general economic development to maximise the economic possibilities for my grandchildren.”

(By the way, kudos to the Irish Times for finally pulling down the paywall.)

To the eternal question; what would you do if you won the lottery? Years ago when I worked in the film industry, a rather suave BBC producer asked the electricians one morning if they’d continue to work. (The conversation took place a couple of weeks after the sparks had broken ranks with the rest of the crew on working nights, insisted on getting their own pay off in cash, and marched around the set waving wads of it at everyone else. Nice guys.) But their answer was a good one: “Yeah, I’d keep on working, but I’d be very f..king cheeky.”

Of course the question really is ‘what is the good life?’. If money was no object, how would you spend yours? It’s complicated a bit by living in the US. First off, the lotteries here seem to impose a double dream tax; if you actually win one, you choose between an annuity or a lump sum. The annuity sums up to a greater amount but doesn’t seem that great a deal if you’re not already financially secure. But secondly, the moral value of money seems to have changed for me in the year I’ve lived here.

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One of the best things about respite care in my family seat – apart from being surrounded by friends and family, and the parents doing their proper duty and tending to my every need and whim – is the hen house. Or, more precisely, the fresh eggs every day from happy hens who spend their time milling around the garden eating worms and bits of old clothes.

Our four hens get a regular servicing from the cock (or ‘rooster’ for Americans who are a bit shocked by its prosaic name), and they all lay regularly, apart from Ginger (pronounced with two hard g’s) who was acquired purely for her beauty. Recently, after one or two literally abortive attempts, Mum managed to keep two eggs warm enough for a month. They’ve now hatched in their home above the Aga, and have begun to eat. So they’re over the worst. At least until their teenage months when their cuteness and fur are gone but they don’t yet have feathers.

Naming conventions for family animals have gone downhill since all six Farrell siblings left home, because the rentals now get a free run at it. These days we have sturdy dogs called Wolf or Sky. Time was when puppies or kittens were called after particularly nasty Roman emperors or generals (Trajan) or appealing characteristics (an initially unloved cat of indeterminate gender named Psycho). Some names were just a bit odd (a black minah bird called d’Arc, and two sweet lovely bunnies called Stalin and Jemima who were eaten by our cousin’s dog, leaving only a fluffy little ear behind), a pair of cockatoos named Chuck and Charlie (Chuck was beheaded through his cage by a cat. Charlie died instantly of shock.). An imposing terrapin named Ming the Merciless.

There was Terry the Pig – a publicity stunt birthday gift from Mum to a politician uncle who’d just had a gossip column written about him by the then-Taoiseach’s mistress, Terry Keane. Some names were just obscure: a foal called Masri and a Siamese cat called Kula. One very loved cat who went by Elvis/Felix by two opposing camps for his entire 15 years. A recent favourite was an ancient female who’d delivered many kittens and came to live with us in her retirement. She was nicknamed Prolapsia.

Anyway, what should we call our new chicks? I’m not allowed to name anything because for years I’ve harbored a desire for a King Charles spaniel who will love me dearly and eat off my plate and sleep in my bed and be named Sweetie. He/she is so real to me that I hardly need to acquire him/her, but my sisters say it’s just not right or natural.

These chicks need names and, left to her own devices, Mum will probably call them Bill and Hillary. The chicks already face a scrawny and awkward adolescence, in about 3 weeks’ time. So let’s not burden them with dreadful names.

Fans of Captain Laurence and Temeraire will be delighted to hear the latest installment of Naomi Novik’s wonderful Napoleonic dragon series is almost here. And in the meantime, there’s a teaser chapter to enjoy. Roll on the 8th of July!

I am SO over the bloody Internet. First of all, if we didn’t have it, I wouldn’t be on the wrong side of the planet, jetlagged and knackered from getting up at 4am for bloody conference calls, dealing with an email inbox full of shitbombs, and helping to ‘coordinate the DNS and unique identifiers’ all bloody day when I’d much rather be in bed reading a dreary French novel about failed relationships (is there any other kind?).

Secondly, I wouldn’t just have gone onto Facebook and found out at least 2 of my siblings are planning to vote against the Lisbon Treaty, and then gone to the Irish Times to certify that, yes, the zeitgeist has turned on Biffo after 4 short weeks, and the No votes are now in the lead. WTF???

You know when you wake up in the middle of the night, having dreamt of a great idea. And maybe you wake up on a plane, with your chin and a fair bit of drool on your chest, and, waking, you still think it’s a good idea. And then, the next day as you disembark you think to yourself, ‘wow, that’s a good idea’. You’re probably just jetlagged and waiting for your soul to catch up with you, as William Gibson would say.

Here it is; a transitional use of technology until those instantly downloading paper-like tablets intersect with the demand curve.

When you wake up on a plane after your pretend night’s sleep, and you’re eating the rubber omelette or the semi-defrosted muffin, you don’t want Internet connection and crumbs in your laptop (and the expectation that you’ll do work). What you really want is your morning paper.

In Brussels where there’s a big market of expats you can buy a locally printed version of your home newspaper. The publisher sends an electronic version of the day’s paper to a local printer and it gets delivered to the shops along with the national papers. It’s not on newspaper print, but it’s a more or less identical paper version of your daily comfort. It’s kind of an umbilical cord, and a good bit cheaper than the air-mailed version you get the next day.

Well, why not have this on planes? Stick one of those printers somewhere in the galley (where there’s loads of room…) and let passengers pay a premium to order their paper in advance and have it delivered with their rubbery breakfast. Then you get to read something a bit more timely than the in-flight magazine and get off the plane fully up to speed on the markets, international news and celebrity gossip. How cool would that be?

BBC news reports that a bust of Julius Caesar has been found in the Rhone. It’s a rare (unique?) contemporary representation, and none too flattering. Who knew there was a Roman ‘realist’ style?

It’s driving me crazy because he reminds me of someone. On first glance, he looks like a Ferengi. It’s certainly a far less noble countenance than your average Julius Caesar. But on second and subsequent glances, he becomes very endearing, and not just in a Short Man Syndrome kind of way. (Dear God, he doesn’t look like Nicolas Sarkozy, does he?) You can really see that this needy little jerk had the smarts to survive Sulla and the gumption to cross the Rubicon. Well worth a look.

When I was 5, we moved from liberal Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin to rural Cashel, Co. Tipperary, and from a free and easy Montessori School to the local convent/Christian Brothers. I’d been reading on my own for a couple of years already (mostly because I was jealous that Henry already could) and I’m not sure I’d really ever heard of the alphabet. The first week in Senior Infants at my new school, we started memorising and chanting our ABCs. I was horrified. I vividly remember counting up the remaining years till I would be finished with school, and it was 14, almost three times longer than my life to date. I’m not sure if I cried then, but now when I think of my little 5 year old self and the bleak and largely tortuous future set out before me, I almost could. [click to continue…]

Riddle me this; how, in a world of competition and trade rules, does OPEC exist? I’ve been asking this question for years, and never gotten a proper answer. My faith in free trade may be shaken.

It reminds me of how, as a teenager, I spent several years asking catechism teachers ‘if I am forgiven my sins in confession, then what is there to talk about on judgment day?’. Result; I’m a practicing Catholic who hasn’t been to confession since I was 17.

But seriously, do WTO rules bend the space-time continuum to let OPEC members continue their cartel-building, export-controlling ways? How is OPEC accommodated in the world of sort-of free trade? I’m not looking for the realpolitik answer. That’s pretty obvious. But what is the legal and institutional answer to this question?

Yesterday, Algeria’s energy minister and current OPEC president said oil may hit $200 a barrel and there’s little OPEC can do about it. As if oil prices are as immutable as the weather. He went on to say increasing output wouldn’t lower prices currently high prices because these are the result of the weak dollar and global instability. Which is some equally bizarre reasoning. Even if you accept situation X is caused by variables Y and Z, doesn’t mean that it can’t be changed by adjusting some other variable. (Whether or not there is a duty of those in control of that variable to adjust it is another question – though the assertion that Saudi Arabia has cut production by 2 million barrels a day in the last 3 years undercuts OPEC’s disinterest claim.)

What’s going on at the level in between OPEC’s realpolitik and disingenuous P.R. claims? Is there such a level of legal or institutional discourse with other countries or institutions? I feel there’s a stratum of interaction missing in the way OPEC is reported on in the news. In the middle bit between its externally focused bully power and its self-serving rhetoric, are there rules that constrain OPEC in its outside relations? (Clearly, internal struggles between producers generate their own constraints and coordination problems – I’m thinking of Robert Bates‘ fascinating work on coffee producers.) How does OPEC get along…?