What I Did Today

Even worse than blog entries about pets or superb epiphanies are the entries that fall into the category "What I Did Today." Without further ado, what I did today:

• dropped off job applications
• refilled prescriptions
• bought a bus pass
• ate food
• waited 25 minutes for a bus
  
• went to the bank
• went to the grocery store
• picked up a bunch of money orders and IRCs to enter writing contests
  
• bought a pile of half-cooked samosas from the samosa place
• picked up 20 pounds of dog food and lugged it home

And that is what I call productive.

News of Various Sorts

My hometown has the distinction of being the location of the first Ku Klux Klan TV station. I was disgusted when I first heard this news and I'm disgusted still.

But Kristin, aren't you proud of being white?

Proud? It's not some great achievement. It just happened. I didn't try to join the White Club. Really, I couldn't care less. So I'm white. That's all. It's nothing to be proud of or not be proud of. It just is. Don't make me out to be some pure or superior race, because I'm not. It is what it is, and nothing more.

Some completely unrelated news: a duck in England was born with four legs. I love animals with extra legs, as long as they're not in pain. This little duck uses its extra back legs as stablizers. And why not? Might as well put those limbs to use. My only concern is that the cause of extra limbs is human-based or environmental... something that people have caused. Frogs with extra legs are cool, yes, but not if they're a sign of our destroying the earth.

Ossicones: the correct term for a giraffe's nubblies

I'm reading a book called Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Actually, I've finished the book except for the acknowledgments and the notes. Yes, I will read those. I always do. Anyway, I thought I would share some info from the book.

Defense Department auditors had begun to question the CPA's [Coalition Provisional Authority's] spending spree with Iraqi oil funds in the waning days of the occupation, noting that as much as $8.8 billion could not be properly accounted for, including $2.4 billion in one-hundred-dollar bills that was flown to Baghdad from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York six days before the handover of sovereignty [back to Iraq]. (p. 295)

It should be mentioned that the American folks in charge in Iraq were granted $18.4 billion that they asked for, but only one-third of that was actually spent. Chandrasekaran also reports that "as much as forty cents of every dollar was being used to pay for guards, armored vehicles, and blast walls" (295). While Iraq got new copyright laws, tax breaks, and traffic regulations, there was no one to enforce them. And if there were people to enforce them, there was no system to do so. Universities in the U.S. received millions of dollars to set up exchanges with Iraqi universities... even though some of those Iraqi universities with whom exchanges were planned had been destroyed. Yes, money that was supposed to be used for education in Iraq was given to U.S. schools. There's something so wrong about that that I don't know where to begin. And we're supposed to believe that it was more important to set up copyright laws than to provide facilities for cleaning up raw sewage? Sewage in the streets, no clean drinking water, sporadic electricity for maybe nine hours per day, and absolutely no safety—at least, that's how it was outside the Green Zone. Inside, it was the U.S. No, it was the upscale U.S.

Congratulations, George Bush. You ruined Iraq, enabled insurgents, and fueled a civil war. Way to go.

Magazine Conference

Ever since my interview with Andris Taskans of Prairie Fire, I've been receiving notices of cool literary and arts events around the city and province and even across Canada. It's been exciting to find out about new opportunities, especially some that I will test out and participate in. In March, for example, there's the Magazines Mean Business conference put on by the Manitoba Magazine Publishers Association. Since I have my little zine and was pointed in the direction of publishing as the way to go, this sparked quite a bit of interest. Coupled with the student rate? I was hooked. So March 16th and 17th I will be a busy critcher, learning and nerding and networking and such. How curious it will be.

Related to magazines: I found out this evening that I will have some artwork in the next issue of Kiss Machine. Very exciting, as the writers in KM seem to be a rather tight-knit group. Sort of exclusive, even. But who doesn't like penis artwork? (You will have to check out the issue to find out what I mean.)