by ·Comments Off on Happy Week

Yesterday’s skiing was brilliant indeed…

My latest paper has nearly received its stamp of approval from my academic peers and newfound friends at the Public Library of Sciences1In the science publishing world, “accepted with revision” is a journal’s way of saying “I am not that kind of girl: first buy me dinner, then I’ll let you rip my clothes off”..

The weather is sunny and nearly getting to the point where I’ll need sunglasses to bike to work.

My new 20-meter-wide monitor was waiting by my desk today..

My personal supplies of high-grade chocolate is at an all time-high. With more on its way as I write..

But most importantly…

Flight EK 316 to Osaka is on schedule…

I am one good news away from breaking out in an elaborate choreography with the local avian life…

by ·Comments Off on Picking Sides

Fielding Mellish: Are we fighting for or against the Government?

CIA operative: CIA is not taking any chances this time. Some of use are for and some of us are going to be against them.

The US have a rather poor record of picking sides, when it comes to dictator-sponsoring. Sure, they could do worse: like France’s Foreign Minister, who assured Mr. Ben Ali of her enduring friendship (along with offer of police back-up)… a mere two days before the Tunisian people drove him out of the country for good. A comically bad timing.

Not long before they opted for an altogether different approach to democracy-spreadin’, the United States used to have nothing but kind words for their good Iraqi friend, Mr. Hussein: shining beacon of containment, if not stability, in the Middle East. Containment made all the more necessary by the fresh return of Mr. Khomeini to Iran, where the people were oddly pissed at the United States for blatantly overthrowing their previous, democratically-elected, government in order to back their own puppet-dictator…

By comparison, I guess a few decades of murder, military coups and oppression by proxy in half of Latin America is a mixed diplomatic bag for the US. At least they managed to keep Pinochet in place longer than Baptista. And, while their success rate on backing a stable dictatorship in Bolivia was only slightly above average, they certainly get extra points in creativity for enlisting a notorious nazi war criminal to help them along the way1nothing beats the know-how of an infamously sadistic Gestapo officer, when it comes to fighting communist insurgents.

Back to our Winter of 2011, where increasingly degrading global economic conditions provide the proverbial straw to the Middle-Eastern camel’s back, sending it to the street2those same economic woes that prompted Western countries to reach for the lube while bending over in front of Goldman Sachs. For the Department of State, Tunisia was a thankfully low-stake gamble: sure, Ben Ali was a model of stable, affably-corrupt, anti-islamist3In our post-cold-war days, “anti-islamist” is the new “anti-communist” magic label that gets you US backing and CIA funding. dictator, but Tunisia wasn’t exactly a central piece of their Middle-East strategy. And with Club-Meds as its main natural resource, Halliburton wasn’t rushing at the door either. So it did not take much to release reasonably non-commital statements in support of “the will of the people”, when the chances of said people appeared to raise slightly above your average strangled-at-birth democratic uprising.

For Egypt, Mrs. Clinton was considerably more restrained in extolling the virtues of democracy. At first suitably neutral (aka “I understand your inspirations… but why must we use violence to settle this? Can’t you people wait another couple decades for a peaceful transition to democracy?”), and progressively more assertive as the situation evolves (but never more than the strict minimum), on the off-chance that she might have to woe Mubarak’s successor in a not-too-distant future. Because if you think the US doesn’t know when to drop a losing horse, you should ask Imelda how long it took Ronnie to erase her husband’s number from the White House speed-dial, when the wind started turning.

Perhaps most surprising (and somewhat hopeful) about the ongoing events in Egypt, is the apparent detachment of the army from Mubarak: not a week ago, every single analyst assured us that Mubarak could rely on the indefectible support of his military, ensuring that no movement could be taken beyond a certain point. In reality, it currently seems like the army might soon join in on the demand for him to step down (remains to be proven what role they would play in the immediate aftermath)…

Anyway, if Egypt pulls this off after Tunisia, I can think of quite a few pet dictators in the region that will start worrying for their job.

by ·Comments Off on Experimental Bakingstry

It is no secret that I like to cook and bake. I have even posted a few recipes here in the past, ranging from Agedashi Tofu to Mango Chutney Pork Chops and Squirrel Melba.

As any sane person would, I blatantly ignore measurement recommendations in recipes. Except when cakes or pastries are involved. Baking is a much different job from regular entree cooking. If entree cooking was engineering: intuitive, reliable and practicable by a trained monkey1Just kidding Engineering M.Sc. friends, we still need you., baking would be much more like chemistry: finicky, unpredictable and liable to poison you if something goes wrong.

Baking is tough, and in a continuous effort to make me more marketable on the 40-to-50-year-old Japanese dating scene, I have been striving to improve my skills. Sometimes with helpful professional tips from friends, but most often through trial and error. Which is where the present entry comes in:

Being a scientist with early-onset Alzheimer and lingering ADD, I need to record the results of my culinary experiments lest I endlessly repeat the same mistakes and end up losing my entire roster of lab-test guinea pigs friends, to food poisoning. After toying with a few different solutions for the 21st-century housewife (from short-lived handwritten notes to mind-boggingly annoying “recipe sharing” websites), I settled, as I usually do, for the easy way: piling it on that shapeless clutter of random notes and pointless observations that we call a blog.

All that to say: the notes below are hardly proper recipes, more like experimental reports and notes for future experiments. No details and how-to’s: only list of ingredients, measurement corrections and fatal mistakes to be avoided. You might find them somewhat useful, but they are mostly addressed to future me and his elusive quest for the perfect chocolate mousse. Feel free to peruse, but don’t say you weren’t warned.

Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients:

  • 200g extra-dark chocolate2In chocolate as in crack-cocaine, never go with less than 70% pure..
  • 100g butter (no more).
  • Shot-glass worth of strong brewed coffee.
  • 5 egg whites, 3 to 4 egg yolks (can use all 5 egg yolks but will result in runnier, stickier mousse).
  • 60g sugar (not 200g, for chrissake).
  • Rum
  • Few drops of vanilla extract

Notes:

  • Essentially based on Julia Child’s already quite awesome recipe, with a few crucial changes: her recommended sugar dosage will kill all diabetics in a 100km radius, if they haven’t keeled over from the massive butter-induced heart attack.
  • Whisk the crap out of egg yolks+sugar+rum (electric egg-beater for the win): makes the result less runny.
  • Dash of lemon juice (/cream of tartar) to whisk egg whites, pinch of salt at the end to retain consistency. Yay for high school chemistry.
  • Get chocolate as cold as possible (but still liquid and smooth) before mixing to egg whites: ice-cube bain-marie.
  • Special extra-sex food-porn edition: tiny ultra-dark-bitter-chocolate specks or candied orange zest.

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest cake)

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by ·Comments Off on Anna Baltzer’s Talk on Palestine at Kyoto University

Last Tuesday, I was serendipitously told of a talk by Anna Baltzer in Yoshida campus. I remembered seeing her on the Daily Show a while back and was curious to hear her talk in more details about her experience and views on the current Middle East situation.

As it happens, I even ranted not long ago about the lack of rational and moderate discourse, in the neverending clusterfuck™ of a situation that is the Middle East. How timely.

No point copy-pasting Anna’s bio, but the skinny is: as a Jewish-American grown up in the US and backpacking her way through North Africa and Asia, she came by herself to the conclusion that many of the views commonly held by her fellow countrymen and community members with regard to contemporary Israeli politics were perhaps overlooking a few teeny details… In particular: serious human right issues with the current treatment of Palestinians in Occupied Territories.

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Oh, Hai there!

I haven’t written a single real post in ages. Not that there is nothing to write about, mind you… Just never both time and motivation. And yet at this stage, seven years in, I think I’m long past the 6 month expiration date that comes with first-time blogging fevers… Anyway: thought I’d do some writing here for a change… My draft for the Great 21st Century Novel will wait until tomorrow.

I want to say it is all in my head, but I am practically sure there is something fundamentally different from Kyoto about the air in Tokyo (no, not just the smog). Summer is obvious: unlike Kyoto, Tokyo’s got a seafront and doesn’t feel like you are being slowly steamed in a giant rice-cooker with wakame on top; late Autumn and Winter are a bit more subtle: both places are cold and often rainy, but Tokyo always has this much crisper night air, with a dash of excitement and a whiff of possibilities, on any given day, at any given hour.

More importantly: Tokyo is a city, hell a Metropolis. Not a museum town, not a collection of temples, not a giant university dorm: a city with all sorts of people with all sorts of jobs able to have all sorts of conversations. Nobody fucking gives a fuck about what university you are attending and most people are happy to lead discussions beyond those wacky differences between wacky foreign customs and wacky Japanese customs. Is it just because the only people over the age of 30 in Kyoto are married, with kids, and probably go out once a year? No offense to all of the 20 year-olds that populate Kyoto’s nightlife and social circles, but I’m pretty sure you would make even 20-year-old me feel old and overly mature. Living in a city of tourists, shut-in natives and post-adolescent one-year exchange students, you tend to forget what it even feels to have a deep meaningful conversations with friends.

Just kidding, Kyoto life is totally OK. I have met many awesome people here. Plus: it was specifically selected on its heavy potential for a studious anchoritic doctoral life… Can’t say I failed there.

That being said, and assuming there is any more of Japan in my post-phd future, rest assured it will be Eastern Capital over Old Capital in a heartbeat.

by ·Comments Off on Election Fatigue…

Dear local Kyoto-fu LDP candidate for the upcoming upper-house election:

True: I cannot cast a vote in this election and sway your chances either direction.

But let me assure you that, if you keep insisting on circling my block multiple times, every morning between 8 and 8:30, inane election slogans blaring from your van’s speakers at top volume, I will be more than happy to contribute to your historical legacy by setting post at the closest grassy knoll with whatever long-range weapon I can get my hands on.

Thanks.

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It is an understatement to say that the entire frame of Israel-related issues has long been overtaken by vociferous extremes. Increasingly weak attempts at launching reasonable, moderate discussions around the topic are bound to be drowned in the heady, simplistic rhetorical bullet points peddled on each side and gladly amplified by scores of well-intented moronic third parties.

Of course, for all the wishful thinking out there: Gaza is not some sort of plucky little nation bravely resisting a cruel barbaric invader. And Israel is not acting out of pure self-preservation to preserve its legitimate borders from impending invasions by neighbouring countries.

Israel is not the source of all oppression and abuse in Gaza. Gaza is currently ruled by a bunch of muslim extremists who have amply demonstrated their lack of concern for basic human rights and are not above propping up kids for their war, presumably because the adults are too busy stoning gays and impure women. Incidentally, hatred of gays and women: a point on which their conservative archenemies on the Israeli side seem to be in complete agreement.

Conversely, Israel has long slipped from its legitimate goal of ensuring its survival against hostile neighbours, toward appeasing a vocal ultra-orthodox minority, whose views on Arab-Israelis and their right to exist are only a couple degrees removed from what could be heard in the streets of 1930’s Berlin. It is no surprise that Israel has started alienating even its staunchest allies over the past decade: claiming to work toward peace while rushing to approve new settlements, like some schoolboy cramming as much as he can into his test sheet before the headmaster snatches it (or, for a more appropriate analogy: like victor nations of past World Wars, rushing to grab as much land as possible before calling in an armistice). There comes a point where no amount of denying the obvious through intellectual contortions can hide the fact that your policies are the exact opposite of what you claim them to be.

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