Sunday, June 21, 2009

In brief...

Like many, I'm completely enraptured by what's underway in Iran. An uprising long in the coming and provoked by a ludicrously blatant fraud is well underway. I've learned repeatedly (and always the hard way) that dictatorial regimes are as a rule far more tenacious than one would expect, and tend to hold on long past their appointed bedtimes. However, I see some reasons to hope there's permanent change underway in Iran.

When the monks of Burma rose up against the State Peace and Development Council in 2007, there was never much hope for them, despite the romantic glory of the images and the undeniable rightness of their cause. The Burmese military never showed any signs of internal fracture, or of any refusal to obey the regime's brutal orders. And without any change inside the military, any collapse in internal discipline, no change was ever really in the offing. The situation in Iran feels different. I don't believe that the Iranian police will have the unwavering, uniform mercilessness required to crush a worthwhile uprising through force alone (though the basijis are another matter. I don't really believe that they'll systematically slaughter thousands, in the manner of Tiananmen, as opposed to the sporadic brutality seen in response to protests in the last couple of days. And if that's true, as I desperately wish, then I don't think they'll be able to suppress this uprising; military discipline could fail, and we might see soldiers and policemen siding with the protesters.

Damn, I hope so.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

In which I age cheerfully!

I had planned a great meandering post on this, the occasion of my 30th birthday, but I got far too caught up in having fun and wandering around Thailand. Narcissistic details on my decade marker will surely follow, but I think it's time to go track down more food!

I love Thailand.

And I'm fairly certain that my 30s will treat me as well as my 20s did.

The best times are yet to come.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Apparently it wasn't hyperbole...

When I described Kathmandu as one of the worst cities in the world, I feared I might have been exaggerating. I apparently wasn't!

To my endless joy, I'll be spending the next two weeks marinating in the sunlight and pad thai of Bangkok - precisely the break from Kathmandu I need! That's assuming I survive the next two days of grueling work securing funding for my NGO. I'll have a very quiet online presence for the coming days, but hopefully there will be lovely pictures of Thailand to soothe the soul.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Bad blogger! Bad!

I've been off the grid for some days now. It's not because nothing's been going on - quite the opposite. I've had a proposal shortlisted and now have a 40-page application to write, to secure oodles of funding for my organization. That's claimed most of my waking hours of late, inevitably. In fact, it's about to take me out to the mountains for a few days, where my colleagues and I will hole ourselves up for 3 or 4 days to write a first draft. I'll be incommunicado until then. But I did want to pop online for a moment and wish Emily (who I'll be seeing in 9 days - yay!) a happy Healthy Brain Day! Here's to many more!