I’m not really sold on the value of theory. Particularly when it comes to the social sciences, I find it often impenetrable, frequently impossibly abstract, and generally inapplicable to meaningful situations. These objections aside, today’s anthropology discussion was actually reasonably captivating. Our theoretical drift was motivated by the question of development: why do efforts at development (meaning in this case that of the third world) consistently fail (by the standards of their own supporters)?

Now one possibility is sheer incompetence. But considering the considerable expertise going into many of these efforts, this is less than satisfactory as an explanation. Another is ill intent. But given the variety of the actors, and the motivations of many of them, this too seems absurd.

A third position is that the fault lies not at the level of implementation, or even really planning, but at the formulation and examination of the problem itself. Development is a process shaped not merely by individual free agents, but by its own internal dynamics: the discourse that contains it, and the epistemology that governs its conception. To take one example, the problem is not merely that bad statistics lead to poor project-planning, but that the way in which we think about knowledge cause us to collect those bad statistics in the first place. Knowledge (Egypt is overcrowded) is socially constructed (our assumptions about valid population distribution as drawn from our experiences and surroundings), as is our knowledge of that knowledge (how we can go about ‘measuring’ overcrowding).

This does lead one to a rather pessimistic view. Since the morning was full of Arabic which I wasn’t wholly on top on, and the evening led to snow as I read a text on Wahabbism, that seems entirely appropriate.

In the meantime, we have an unfolding internet drama pitting our homegrown theocrats against some of the best and brightest of the leftish bloggers. Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan have resigned from the Edwards campaign. The two were attacked by the Catholic League (a Christianist outfit run by William Donohue) and its deranged and abusive followers for having the gall to mock and criticize the misogynistic and patriarchal practices of the Catholic church. This their (Marcotte’s and McEwan’s) opponents called ‘hate speech’, before proceeding to threaten them with violence, rape and the like. Edwards refused to stand fully behind them, keeping them as employees, but disavowing their comments as ‘offensive’ and doing nothing to force a halt to the vicious campaign against them. Thus both have resigned.

Once again, we have a clear example that in American public life, you can be a homophobe or a racist, but being critical of Christian religion is a no-go. Until that changes, McEwan and Marcotte are quite justified in their strident criticism of the Catholic Church, an organization with an assuredly mixed record up to the present. ßGo Pandagon and Shakes’ Sis!

I hate writing. Scratch that. I find writing to be the most aggravating activity in the world (with the possible exception listening to fools, which clocks in pretty high on that roster too).

The problem is actually pretty simple. I have an idea, or an observation (often regarding an assignment). It seems decent. I want to put it down on paper (or as is the case these days, on computer). So, I try to write it out. But it doesn’t quite come it right. It gets convoluted or it doesn’t sound as clever as I thought it was, or I somehow wind up on a tangent writing about something I had no intention of discussing or…

At some point in the process, I realize I’m writing garbage. So I try again. Usually at first, I’ll just start near the end. Hoping to turn things around you see. That’ll fail. So I wind up rewriting the whole darn thing. Again. And again. And so on.

At some point, I give up. Sometimes, it’s because I’m marginally satisfied. More often, it’s because I’m sick of the whole thing, or don’t have any more time to blow on it. The result is that most of the time, I can’t stand to read what I’ve just written. I know it’s garbage, but I haven’t got the will or the means to do a damn thing about it.

Today, I wasted a good hour trying to expand on an op-ed I saw in the NY Times (Gar Alperovitz, “California Split”, Feb. 10). Good op-ed on the virtues of decentralizing the US. All I wanted to do was to elaborate on the benefits such a plan would have for the left, while simultaneously allowing us to coopt much of the right in its execution. Yet somehow, my thoughts just wouldn’t come out right.

I also had the privilege of writing something short for a class. The advantage there was that I could let my conscience rest on the issue of quality: deadlines are deadlines, after all.

Reading is fun (lots of that today). Thinking is okay. But writing? Maybe academia isn’t such a hot destination after all.

The hard thing about Sunday is that it’s followed by Monday, but preceded by Saturday. So you have a precedent going in (staying up late, being somewhat lazy) and a need for results. A rather ugly combination.

Still, things must be done, so I did… things.

Among the things done (though not necessarily planned on) was to watch the rather curious John Cusack comedy, “Grosse Point Blank.” Premise: A hit man goes home to complete a job and attend his ten-year high school reunion. The whole conception is perfect for a black comedy. Which the film would be, except they have to throw in a love interest who softens the film to the point that the blackness is basically submerged and even SNL’s Dan Aykroyd can’t quite rescue it. All that said, something about Cusack makes him just perfect for the role of hitman, particularly when he has to deadpan lines like: “Oh, I kill people for a living.” Plus, it’s 1997 and he’s using a PowerBook. “Solidarity, baby” (Aykroyd to Cusack in the final shootout).

And now, how about some Egyptian political economy, with a dash of Arabian Islamism?

So on top of some general reshuffling, cleanup, memorizing odd Arabic words and writing overdue letters, my odyssey with the printer ended in success. A few weeks back, I’d tried to print out some photos from my shiny new laptop. The prints were alas far from shiny and new-looking: they were disturbingly grainy and blurred. Playing with innumerable printer configuration settings accomplished nothing. Today I had the inspired idea to downgrade from Photoshop CS 3 beta to CS 2. And lo and behold, my prints no longer stink (or rather, they look as good/bad as they did before the new computer. Guess I shouldn’t be using beta software to print out stuff I care about?

Rather than spell out in painful detail (and after the fact) the happenings of the week, let me just mention a few highlights.

Monday 2/5: Cold and gloomy. That’s me, not the weather.

Tuesday 2/6: Nominally introduced the Anthropology discussion, but in practice, received a rather convoluted education into the construction (and potential deconstruction) of human rights.

Wednesday 2/7: Tackled 19th century Iran in the history class. Interesting to compare to the Ottoman Empire.

Thursday 2/8: Went out to lunch with Uncle H- and grandparents before his return to LA. For once, Indian food without indigestion.

Friday 2/9: Catch up. On course readings. On Arabic. On sleep. On this neglected blog. Lots of catch up.

Sunday was the sort of day that just sort of happened. It all centered around a rather haphazard lunch that several members of the party rather vociferously objected to. Nothing could be done, however, and so there was a giant trip to the grocery store for enormous quantities of food that didn’t get eaten, followed by a lunch gather mixing relatives and neighbors. As Cousin H- was intent upon affixing balloons to everybody throughout, I was rather distracted.

The remainder of the afternoon was pretty quiet, until it was suggested that perhaps we should go see a movie. One mad rush later, we were in a theater in Elmsford, tickets in hand for Babel. I wasn’t really all that impressed, although the bits of Arabic were of some interest. It was the sort of movie that would have been affecting, had it not been so heavy-handed.

Regardless, the reality of morning classes meant that as soon as we returned and Grandpa attended to his presents, I left for the train station. A quick ride to White Plains got me to an express train. Entertainment riding back alone was limited. I also made the mistake of taking the express subway line at Grand Central. Walking to my apartment from 14th St. shouldn’t have been a big deal, but the mid-teens temperature and roaring wind going down Broadway left me feeling just about as cold as I can remember. After a can of soup to warm up, I checked the web: temperature of 14 degrees, or -3 with wind chill. Brr…

Today’s narrative begins with me, groggy and with a slight headache, getting up at 7AM. This allowed me almost two hours to do a number of errands. Send off, via post, one of the last eBayed Kanga parts (an extra ethernet board and a 64MB RAM module, no less). Return a book to the library that I’d now bought. Eat a light breakfast. Try and dress warmly.

At a quarter past 9 came the buzz by the doorman to indicate Dad had arrived. Considering his overnight flight, and lack of sleep, I suppose the 20 degree weather in which he had walked from Penn Station down to my place was in a sense useful. We took a quick jaunt around Washington Square before deciding to give the outdoors a miss and stop at yuppieish restaurant/bakery called Le Pain Quotidien. There we not only drank tea and had a light breakfast, but managed to meet Cousin K- who I had not seen in almost 3 months (despite his being at NYU for much of that time), and watched a very large SUV get towed from a red-zone.

We took a tour of the library (to my surprise, they let Dad in without complaint) before encountering prolonged blasts of icy air on the way to the quay by the Hudson. This exceedingly clear view of Manhattan, New Jersey, and a good deal more (lady liberty herself was a sizable smudge on the horizon) was marred considerably by gusts that reduced us to almost complete numbness. After leaving K-, who had work to do, Dad and I took the subway down to the former site of the World Trade Center. Or rather, we overshot it, as the trade-center’s collapse had closed the relevant station. The site itself was the scene of a great deal of construction equipment and workers, though it is as yet only a big hole.

Next to the WTC site is the WFC, the World Financial Center which seems to be part of a general revitalization project for lower Manhattan. This huge, heated, and oddly open building offered lunch opportunities and the vocals of a goodly number of Gospel choirs, vying in some sort of competition. Returning from the WFC to the subway brought us past a building billowing smoke that seemed to have attracted most of the FDNY. Perhaps Saturday afternoon is a slow period?

In quick succession, we picked up card, present and luggage and grabbed the subway up to Grand Central, whence we took the train in to Hartsdale. Waiting at the other end, having also just arrived from California, were Uncle J-, Aunt I- and Cousin H-. We thus arrived at the grandparents house, unannounced and unexpected. Both Grandma and Grandpa were suitably surprised.

The actual birthday part of the evening (well, this whole thing was for Grandpa’s 90th birthday, you see) was almost anti-climactic by comparison. We reveled briefly in togetherness, had a light dinner (Chinese take-out) and once jet lag finally kicked in, everybody went to bed. And I do mean everyone.

Today was pretty grey outside, which matches my disposition pretty closely. Attempts to engage with next week’s course readings dovetailed with my visit to midtown to pick up computerish stuff: a case to replace the one that doesn’t quite fit (which I returned) and a USB hub to so I can finally stop juggling cables. It’s impressive really: I regularly need 5 USB ports (printer, headphones, keyboard/mouse, hard drive and cell-phone charger). I feel a bit ashamed given how much they cost, but assuming I keep them as long as I plan on keeping the machine, it seems justifiable. The store, conveniently located right by the New York Public Library, claimed to be the biggest computer store in Manhattan. Guess I’m kinda starting to miss Fry’s Electronics.

One of the articles I read for next week was a fascinating discussion of the experience of Cambodian refugees in the American healthcare system. On one side, the system was clearly designed to assimilate the immigrants into western medicine, and force them into a certain kind of relationship with the state. And yet the immigrants, while not openly fighting back, effectively subverted the system at many junctures. In one case, they claimed symptoms in order to gain state-support, while avoiding the medicine which they did not approve of. Passive-resistance if you will, and surprisingly effective.

In other news, I tried making a new kind of pasta today. See, my life really is exciting sometimes!

The substantive part of the day centered around Arabic. This was followed by lunch with the grandparents, who were down in the area for yet more medical tests.

In the afternoon, the red plastic case I’d ordered for my MacBook Pro finally arrived. It’s supposed to keep the case from getting scratched or banged up. While this appears likely, the cutouts for the ports on the right side of mine don’t match up right. This despite having explicitly advertised compatibility with the latest model MacBook Pros. Oh well. At least it’s pretty (I had a choice between transparent and red, and red seemed more appropriate.

The rest of the day was devoted to dropping by the post office, getting groceries, doing some bank stuff, and helping my roommate upgrade the memory in his laptop. Happily the laptop still works fine, although the performance increase from the new memory (upgraded from 256MB to 768MB was less noticeable than hoped for). Meanwhile my own laptop has been demonstrating a bit of instability. I ran a memory test, but it didn’t show anything. Hope I don’t have a partially defective machine.

Finally, some sad news today: Molly Ivins, one of the best columnists in the country, died yesterday as a result of breast cancer, at the age of 63. Ivins had the rare gift of being able to be both incredibly funny and deeply serious at the same time. She was a constant reminder that Texas has produced far more than merely bible-thumpers and smog.

Today was rather sketchy. And by sketchy I mean blurry.

The morning was mostly occupied by Arabic. But I also had to finalize my fellowship application, which meant crafting that statement of purpose. What I really hate about writing a statement of purpose is that it makes me sound as if I bragging. Despite what many people no doubt think of me, I really have always preferred understatement to overstatement, and yet this is a case where understatement doesn’t work. At least not any more (the transcript isn’t quite what it was back in the halcyon days of high school). Nonetheless, I did pull together something, and turned in all the requisite materials to the office, on time.

An unfortunate side-effect of this was, however, that not only did I not start out writing my presentation until late, but I cleverly managed to quite without saving. So I spent the first half of the history seminar nervously trying to compose my thoughts and an outline as the professor detailed the transformations wrought by colonial powers in Algeria and Egypt during the 19th century. These, not coincidentally, were exactly the same examples my adviser used in a course I took almost 2 years ago in Paris. The presentation itself was reasonably smooth and clear, if not exactly polished and engrossing. The ensuing discussion actually worked pretty well: we remained within the realm of hard facts, avoiding meta-level digressions.

Feeling I had earned some sort of reward, I spent the evening musing about MacBook Pro expansion options (mainly storage related) and eating a large chunk of pie.