you know the drill

(other than being mrs. noz's birthday and sanity/fear day in DC) saturday was "city day" here in taraz. apparently, every year the powers-that-be pick some random day in late october to be celebrated as the anniversary of taraz's founding. because no one really knows when this ancient city was established, the mayor's best guess is all they got. and why not? he could be right. i have no idea why it's always in october.

the city celebrated the occasion with (say it with me now),: a parade. that's how they do every celebration here. and yes, the usual dancers and traditional costumes came out as well, with those same announcers announcing (one in russian and the other in kazakh) each group that walked by and then leading the crowd in a hearty "oorah!" the only twist was that this celebration took place in the football¹ stadium and not the central square. on the other hand, something did go on in the central square earlier in the day, but we missed it. so maybe they did the square parade as well.

here's my establishing shot:


these are the guys who surrounded the football field and made sure i didn't cause a ruckus:


here's a zoom shot of some of the dancers:


here's a non-zoom shot of those dancers, so you can see how many dancers they had and how awesome our seats were:


here's some signs i can't understand from some group that paraded past us:


and here's that may pole thingy they always haul out for special occasions, even when the occasion is not in may:


there was probably more, but it felt like we had seen it all before. so we went to get pizza in a nearby turkish cafe and watched the fireworks over the stadium as we ate mrs. noz's birthday dinner.

-------------------
1- "football" (Футбол) being the kazakh word for "soccer".

halloweenless

october 31st in taraz is apparently just a really boring day. there won't be much of a costume, but out of solidarity, i will stuff my face with candy tonight. there isn't a whole lot else to do on a sleepy autumn sunday in this town.

soviet zhambyl

the drab soviet-era concrete block apartments in taraz are made a little less drab by the fancy cyrillic signs placed on top of a lot of the buildings. i think they are (or were) the names of each apartment block. not all of apartment buildings from this era have the signs. but i wonder if the signs fell off the ones without.

in any case, there's something a little faded-gloryish about the the stylish script. it really makes me wonder what this city looked like 50 years ago. was it really so drab? or were there little touches like these more common than i would otherwise think? surely somewhere out there, there must be photographs of this place in the 30s, 40s or 50s.

isn't that what traveling presidents do?

what a remarkably stupid headline.

"shtat?"

back in kaz after a four month break, all these things that used to be funny about this place but which ceased being funny when i got used to them during my prior 6.5 month stay, have become funny again. this morning's i was amused again by how everyone new who i meet seems to be working off the same script. they all ask exactly the same thing in roughly the same order. question #1 is always "where are you from?" and when i say i am from the USA, question #2 will always be "what state?" but no one who asks is ever prepared for the answer. they've never heard of any of the states, except maybe california and new york (and NY only because they think it is only a city).

when i answer "pennsylvania", i always get the same blank stare. so then i say my city is philadelphia, which doesn't help either because they don't eat cream cheese here. so then i say "between new york city and washington d.c." and from then on they will tell everyone that i am from new york.

when cows fly

on the other hand, it's probably a good thing that i did not go the wacky sitcom route.

nothing makes u.s. politics feel distant like distance

i believe for the first time ever, i am sitting in a foreign country on the even of a fairly major (albeit "off year") election. normally at this time i'd be obsessing over small changes in the polls and scrutinizing the daily stupid story to determine how it might affect the election.

instead, i find i don't care. the u.s. and it's politics feels very far away right now because, well, it is very far away. because my internet options are more limited here, it takes more effort to follow those political stories and i find that on most days i really don't feel like making the effort.

maybe it's some kind of defense mechanism. the democrats (i.e. "my side") face a loss, so maybe my kazakhstan adventures are just a way to avoid the harsh facts of the day. but i doubt that's the case. for one thing, a losing election is often more interesting than a winning one. and when i think of missing all the inevitable post-election democratic finger pointing i get a twinge of regret for not being there to watch the stupidity unfold. also, part of me believes the "GOP tide" isn't nearly as big as it has been hyped to be. i'm still curious to see if the failure to meet expectations of a blowout might end up backfiring for the republicans.

but also, i will not be voting this election. my travel plans popped up with too little notice for me to get an absentee ballot. (MontCo requires the application be submitted 30 days prior to election day) so, among all the other indignities i have had to put up with in this process, kazakhstan has managed to disenfranchise me. not voting also strangely makes me feel like i have less of a stake in the election, like whatever happens i can wash my hands of it because i wasn't able to take part. on the other hand, if sestak loses by 2 votes, i will be pretty pissed off. so maybe i do care after all.

i can't believe i rushed halfway around the world for this

"hurry up and wait" should be the official motto of kazakhstan.

almaty

my midnight landing was a bit less scenic than the video i had set to post at my flight's arrival time yesterday. gone was the green pleasant city of outdoor cafes with views of snow-capped mountains from last june. in its place was the foggy cold drab city that i encountered last december. the fog was so thick, i couldn't see much at all, even on the ride to the hotel.

this morning i woke up at 6am local time. it was still dark outside and the light switch in my room didn't work. i took a shower by itty bitty book light, before getting dressed in the dark and stumbling down 5 flights of dark stairs because the elevator wasn't working. i had breakfast sans coffee because they could not heat the water. then i wandered around the powerless city in the snow and freezing rain looking for coffee and internet and eventually realizing that the blackout wasn't limited to my hotel.

welcome back to kazakhstan.

back in the (former) USSR

jesus fucking christ, i'm leaving tomorrow

so much to do!

yet i still will show up at drinking liberally tonight. at least for a little while.

and no, i haven't started packing yet. why do people keep asking me that?

how can you not love this guy?

i discovered jimmy mcmillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High party from the profile of those five other gubernatorial candidates in this morning's NYT. i guess it's not too surprising that mcmillan stole the show at tonight's debate.

seriously, click the link, watch the three videos and tell me it doesn't remind you of this.

(via MatthewB)

now that's an attack ad

apparently it really did happen. the ad was paid for by an organization called "FOPATKITFOC". catchy!

(via)

good thing i kept the incomprehensible title on this blog

it's official. i'm heading back to kazakhstan on wednesday. that is, unless they don't send my passport back from NY before the flight leaves. that would really suck.

ah, the joys of last minute central asian travel!

serenity now

it's been a stressful bunch of days as i've waited to find out what continent i will be on in a few weeks.

you know what might help? some bunnies in some cups.

why christine o'donnell is not dangerous at all

i'm puzzled by james fallows post "Why Christine O'Donnell Could Be More Dangerous Than Sarah Palin" because it doesn't even mention the humongous reason that she is not: she can't win.

okay, that's not totally true. she has almost no chance of winning. it's not even close. it really looks like she's going to get creamed. chris coons has maintained a solid double-digit lead ever since o'donnell got the nomination. the current 538 average of her poll numbers has her behind by 18 points. that site's projections give her a zero percent chance of winning. by comparison, 538 says that pat toomey has a 92% chance of beating joe sestak and sestak is only 7 points behind in the polls. how does a single digit different translate into such a large predictive percentage in the sestak-toomey race? nate silver notes that historically someone who is polls behind by 7% at this late stage in the race (with less than 3 weeks to go) goes on to lose 92 times out of 100. o'donnell's 0% chance means that no one has ever come back from being this far behind in the polls at this late stage.

of course the polls could be wrong. but if her polls could be wrong, all the polls could be wrong. and if all of them are wrong, a whole lot of stuff that is regularly referred to with certainty by political commentators is also wrong (stuff like "the republican wave", the relative unpopularity of president obama, and the public's concern about unemployment). the only reason that everyone is assuming the democrats will lose seats in congress in the upcoming election is because they believe in those very same polls. i believe them too, at least overall.

the only thing that o'donnell is is a clown. the media loves clowns. that's why although there are scores of political debates going on in this election year only the o'donnell-coons debate was carried live by CNN. it's not because the race is a nail biter, or is more important than any other senate race this year. normally CNN wouldn't give a state like delaware the time of day. they broadcast it because they were hoping that o'donnell would say something stupid so CNN would have the clip and would be able to bobblehead about it afterwords. nancy karibjanian might as well have dispensed with the questions and just gone with: "say something funny, christine." that's the only reason wolf blitzer was there.

o'donnell losing by a landslide is the closest sure thing we can get in politics. she's just a bargain-basement sarah palin. and like sarah palin, she will never be elected to higher office in this country. also like palin, o'donnell might be able to leverage her current exposure into a job as a commentator. but only because we're all hoping that she says something really hilariously stupid.

(via memeorandum)

if only i lived in a wacky sitcom

these last-minute tickets to kazakhstan are expensive! maybe i should consider getting a cow costume.

drinking liberally

either this week or next week will be my last philadelphia drinking liberally before i disappear for... well, i'm not sure how long yet. so if you've been hankering to toss a drink in my face, throw me through the window or refuse to give me a ride home, this might be your last chance for... um... some as-yet-undetermined period of time.

where: jose pistola's, upstairs bar
263 S. 15th St.
Philadelphia, PA, 19102
when: 6pm until later

everyone is welcome. most of the regulars are not nearly as unsavory as you may have heard.

as in "to swing"

one of my periodic beefs is how pennsylvania is always referred to as a "swing state". it comes up every presidential election year. but the last time that PA gave its electoral votes to a republican was 1988. from the record it seemed like PA was pretty reliably democratic, at least in terms of presidential votes over the past 20 years. PA's blue shift has also been evident in other (non-presidential) elections. in the 11 years since i moved to this state the governorship went from a moderate republican to a democrat, we ditched rick santorum (then one of the more reactionary senators) for a bland bob casey, and our one seemingly senator for life, the so-called moderate arlen specter, jumped ship and became a democrat. if the state swings, it looked to me like the swinging was all in one direction.

at least that's how i saw it until now. there's no presidential vote this year, but the governor's race and the senate race both seem to be solidly stuck in the GOP's column. i wonder if this means that my state really is a swinger, despite my protests to the contrary.

even kazakhstan

since my life has become hopelessly intertwined with kazakhstan, i've become aware of the "even kazakhstan" phenomenon. last march i wrote about a small bunch of people writing about california's crappy credit score who all noted that the states rating was even worse than kazakhstan. i saw the same phenomenon in today's new york times:

France ranks 46th in the World Economic Forum’s 2010 gender equality report, trailing the United States, most of Europe, but also Kazakhstan and Jamaica.

kazahstan consistently rates fairly high (pdf) on gender-equality rankings. that kazakhstan might rank higher than france is only surprising if you don't know where kazakhstan normally ranks. (same with italy)

christopher robbins called kazakhstan the land that disappeared. the former soviet 'stans are the lost heart of asia. for the most part, that portion of the map is simply vacant from most american's consciousness, which is not a big deal as far as i am concerned. not everyone has to know about every corner of the world. but it's weird when people are ignorant and then act like they are not ignorant. whether disappeared or lost, kazakhstan seems to be an empty slate where people are free to fill in their own ignorant assumptions. that's basically why sacha baron cohen chose it for borat.

put another way, i wouldn't say "the average hair length in germany is even shorter than the hair length in burundi" because i have no idea of how long the average hair length is for people living in burundi. without more facts, the it is not a comparison that would be meaningful to me or to most people, so there's no point in making it. and i don't think a western newspaper would try that comparison without at least giving some background information about burundian hair length. and yet, these kind of comparisons do happen with kazakhstan fairly frequently. i'm not sure why.

refudiated

i'm amused to see that GOP strategist ed gillespie use the term "refudiate" and apparently wasn't trying to be ironic about it.

"refudiate" didn't exist prior to july 2010. then sarah palin used it in a tweet and was promptly and widely mocked for being such a fucking idiot.

i had noticed that "refudiate" had taken on a bit of life of its own. but i hadn't seen it used before in a non-ironic way, or at least not part of a palin joke. it makes me wonder again about the bubble that much of the modern conservative movement lives in these days. you can watch fox news, read the washington times and keep up with right blogistan while remaining completely unaware that palin's use of the word "refudiate" caused any stir. i don't know whether gillespie is in the bubble. but that would explain how he could say "refudiated" without at least cracking a smile.

sharktopus!

not exactly why i came to chicago, but it will do.

the noz has landed

the windy non-apple at last

it was bound to happen

the parody:



(via susie)

can there be a pocket veto when the senate is not on recess?

the word is that president obama will use a pocket veto to kill the interstate recognition of notarizations act.

a pocket veto only works when congress is adjourned for ten days following the date that the bill is sent to the president's desk. but last week, senate leadership announced that it would hold pro forma sessions each week so that technically the senate would not be in recess. the senate is doing that to prevent recess appointments, but wouldn't that also prevent a pocket veto?

i'm no parliamentarian, but it seems like it would to me. or maybe the pocket veto only works if both chambers of congress is in session? (the pro forma sessions are only for the senate, not the house) does anyone know the answer?

the right's backhanded support for health care reform

kevin drum pointed me to this post by stephen spruiell over at the NRO. spruiell's post begins with this:

Janet Adamy of the Wall Street Journal has become the administration’s worst nightmare — a writer for a major newspaper who calmly, straightforwardly, without spin or bias, reports on the unintended consequences of Obamacare as they unfold. Every week she drops a new payload of bad PR on the Democrats as yet another insurance company (often a non-profit one) is forced to raise premiums to cover some new “free” service that Obamacare has guaranteed, or yet another large company (last week McDonalds, this week 3M) moots the option of dropping or altering the health-care plans of its workers in response to the costs associated with the new legislation[.]

kevin drum points out that 3M's actions are actually completely consistent with the goals of the affordable care act (and last week's mcdonald's story turned out to be not quite "without spin or bias").

but what i find interesting about janet adamy's reports, and bloggers on the right like spruiell who echo adamy's articles, is what a complete reversal this represents from how things used to be. for years, reporters and bloggers on the left have been the ones who like to bring up problems with health insurance in the u.s. the american system has long provided plenty of examples of both crazy bureaucratic nightmares and genuine human tragedies that result from our private insurance system. highlighting those examples is essentially what michael moore was doing with sicko.

since the passage of the ACA, the right has suddenly discovered the health debacle genre. whereas before the ACA, the right either largely ignored these stories or contested their veracity, now they are the ones who are bringing them up in an attempt to discredit the ACA. now that the right associates the status quo with the ACA, they are no longer defending the status quo.

which i think this is a good thing. the more people we have talking about our crazy health care system the better. such talk can only increase the chances of further reform, even when it comes from the right. rather than being "the obama administration's worst nightmare" i think even adamy's misleading reports help hammer home the idea that the health care system in this country is fundamentally broken and that the ACA did not go far enough.

X

who says bipartisanship is dead?

everyone could lose their jobs, health care access could disappear, the planet could turn into an uninhabitable smog-choked cinder, but don't mess with americans' tee vee.

fearful symmetry

the only thing the democrats have going for them this election cycle are the republicans.

the best thing the republicans have going for them are the democrats.

october surprise?

i'm half convinced that the o'donnell campaign is doing this all on purpose in an attempt to win the ironic vote.

unfortunately for o'donnell, there just aren't enough hipsters in delaware to bridge the gap in the polls. take it from a guy who grew up in the first state: the indigenous hipsters leave.

focusing on the issues

despite her claims to the contrary, christine o'donnell's father was not bozo the clown. seriously. to clarify: the senior o'donnell was merely an understudy bozo. he didn't have the proper bozo certifications, you see. you need to go to a "special school in texas" for that. seriously.

and in other news, christine o'donnell is, um, me. also, she is not a witch.

not that i don't see the down side to credible threats of a terrorist attack

is it wrong that the first thing that entered my mind when i read about the travel advisory for europe was: "cheaper airline tickets to kazakhstan"?

also, do thoughts get quotation marks?

right wing radio duck

it's amazing how good remixes like these have gotten lately.

(via boing²)

how the love of meatballs led her to christ

every week since the DE primaries, bill maher has dipped into his archives and released an allegedly embarrassing video of christine o'donnell from his politically incorrect days. this week, maher released his third video, in which o'donnell admits that she experimented with a variety of religions in her youth, like "witchcraft" and buddhism, and she considered becoming a hari krishna.



what i don't get is why this would be embarrassing. is there something wrong with trying out different religions before you decide on the right one for you? i don't even think her brethren on the christian right would mind. many evangelical christians adopt the narrative of going on a spiritual journey, trying out different beliefs before they finally land at what they consider to be the "one true faith." isn't that what being "born again" is all about?

also, o'donnell is italian? o'donnell?!?!?

it's october

how the hell did that happen already? this year has been a total bizarro blur for me. and now it's almost over.