sometimes, for all times

I have a propensity to not finish things. I start a project, get very excited about it, and then it just gets consumed in my excitement for something new. I'm afraid that I won't complete my applications for graduate school. I'm afraid I will do so poorly on the GRE that I won't be able to go where I want. These things cannot happen. Not only does the completeness of my future depend on them, but now I'm responsible for someone else as well. And I'm thrilled about that responsibility. The burden lays on me and that is what I need to actually get things done.

Outside of the responsibility for my future studies, the relationship that I am in is not only filled with extreme love but also inspiration. I've known that I want to be involved in social urban affairs and community development for some time now but not until recently have I been able to define my ideals so pointedly.

I want to learn about the ways a city works (and fails) so that I can go to communities within the city and teach people there how to fix the problems themselves. I do not want to bulldoze a neighborhood, I want to re-seed it and give the watering cans to the people. I want to help create a sense of community by providing an open and public space where people can congregate for political and social events, I want the sidewalk to be safe and alive, I want to help small and local business grow and prosper by providing not only business-related incentives but also by providing incentives for consumers, I want to create affordable housing so that once the community begins to prosper the people who are the community don't have to leave due to increasing rents and high-priced goods/development. I want there to be amenities that are reachable by foot and bicycle, and for the amenities that are not, I want to develop infrastructure that allows for inexpensive bus rapid transit that is efficient and for everyone's use. Ultimately, I want to re-weave the urban fabric of America that has gone unwashed and that has decayed over the past 40 years.

I think that these things are achievable for our society and that I can be one of the people to help acheive them. I might be able to do it alone; that is, go to graduate school, get my degree, find the right organization and begin. However, I don't want to do it alone. I never did want that. I've always wanted a partner who has the passion that I do and the ambition to put the passion into practice. I've thought about working and loving with someone who can be the left hand to my right and who can add something new and important to an aspect of a problem that I didn't know existed. As independent as I am and as much as I want to venture into this world with nothing but my own mind, I want and need the support of someone else; especially someone else as impassioned and excited as myself.

If capitalism has taught me anything, it's that sometimes you don't know you want something until it shows up right in front of you. Sometimes you turn your head and keep walking.

Sometimes you keep your sights aligned and just get lucky.

a song for all times

"...and the road's still long but you come along
and you hold my hand and you understand..."

my dutch life

oh, the lives one leads...

Study: Men with traditional views on gender roles earn more

Gender Roles and Pay Scale

"The study found that men with traditional views on the gender role in the society made an average of about $8,500 more annually compared to their more “modern-thinking” men. The same situation occurred in the case of couples who both tended to view the ideal place for a woman as the home. They had a significant earning advantage over those who disagreed. "

do they make more because these type of men tend toward industries that are male-dominated?

Regardless, I'd rather be egalitarian and poor than keep a housewife who doesn't think for herself.

Imperial Ambitions: Privatize 'dat shizz

Georgia negotiates $750m IMF loan

"The IMF has agreed in principle to offer financial help to Georgia amid concerns that its growth will be seriously hampered by the recent war.

The IMF said its loan would 'help sustain the confidence of markets and investors by supporting policies that will ensure continued macroeconomic stability and promote the recovery of private sector investment and economic growth.'"

This is what imperialism looks like. The West doesn't send fleets of ships filled with guns and soliders anymore (well, not that often atleast), instead we send huge sums of money that are to be spent based on a certain set of conditions that are set to a very particular ideology. In the case of the IMF (and World Bank) this ideology is privatization. By divesting out of the State and investing in the private sector, huge sums of money are to be made. The powerful do not benefit nearly as much when the supposedly 'corrupt and ineffficent' state are running public services, eg. healthcare.

While privatization boosts the GDP of a nation, the money that is boosting the GDP is coming from foreign investors and taking the power of commerce away local entrepreneurs. Also, in this World Bank research paper, the authors mention that state solidarity helps fend off conflicts. It can only be inferred then that privatization fragments a society and does not help maintain national solidarity in the face of an internal threat, thus keeping it in the conflict trap.

As far as the IMFs role goes though; imperialism is the mode of operation and conditionality is a large aspect of that mode. By lending money that can only be spent certain (ideological) ways, the IMF aims to 'help', so long as the West gets an economic ally, a.k.a. a state with cheap labor wages and a new market to sell export goods on.