current events.

I have been told that I am not aware of politics or current events and that is a character flaw. I do suppose this is true, because it makes me seem rather ignorant, I just don't have time anymore to read the new york times. well, now I will make time because being ignorant does not merit excuses.

this week in the week in review (my favorite part of the new york times) in order of "current events-iness":

1. democrats need a rally monkey -- pretty much saying that the democrats have lost steam and are "snakebit" (think venom.). how can democrats suck the venom out? A. show that they can govern successfully (i.e. pass a health care reform bill), and; B. frame the election from a stand-behind-your-party-so-we-don't-fall-back-into-the-dark-ages-of-republican-and-sarah-palin-domination kind of approach. pretty much, the democratic party needs some oomph before they can spring back, so there needs to be something done. this is also caused by a lack of clear party message (which the republican party has).

2. iran's ace (or deuce): its oil reserves -- for those of you who didn't know (don't be embarrassed, I'm raising my hand too), american officials want to put new international sanctions on iran this week. (huh. guess I missed that one.) iran and china (and lots of asia, actually) are buddy-buddy because of the nuclear programs they've both been running. anyway, this article goes on to say that iran only thinks it has so much power because of their oil & ties with a global superpower. china has yet to openly oppose and challenge american action (especially in the persian gulf) so that leverage is (like the democratic party, see #1) losing steam. also, iran itself needs to keep oil barrels at a certain price to offset their own deficit and lots of other countries (i.e. saudi arabia) are getting stacked with oil so iran no longer has their trump card. so, other countries (saudi arabia) can develop relations with major asian countries (china) so that the sanctions that america wants to impose can really work. right now no connection with china is a trump card, but china itself and the role and mood it decides to play is the trump card.

3. between germany and greece, a chorus of sturm, drang and pathos -- apparently greece has a really big deficit too these days (I want to say I didn't know this because, well, I didn't, but it's not surprising because at this point pretty much the entire world has a deficit, right?). anyway, greece is trying to solve its deficit and finding solutions has been an issue. this article focuses on the idea that greece ask for reparations from germany from wwii.

I can't read any more current events. I'm going to vomit up the nytimes week in review in t-minus 10 seconds....

had some interesting thoughts that I'll probably be writing about over the next few days. hope you're all caught up on the world (well, as much as I am anyway). for what it's worth, someone called me on not being updated...bet they won't call you...