Ran Jak Diary

Rumor

"Dutch TV announced your interview has a real surprise, something spectacular. A hint please!"

Well, for half an hour of the interview, I was engaging in the act of making love with the girl who asked all the questions. That may have been it. Or it may be a reference to a short segment, ten minutes at the most, when I answered a few questions while swimming underwater.  Otherwise, they might be hinting at the song I sang on the show while walking through Amsterdam's red light district, wearing only a pair of clogs. Those clogs were so cool - original Dutch wooden shoes, original bright blue enamel. I wonder where I can buy a pair.

Military judge defies Obama request

A US military judge at Guantanamo has refused Obama's request to suspend the military trial of one prisoner for 120 days, US officials said Thursday. At issue is the case of Abd Al Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi accused in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 US sailors. In making his decision, army colonel James Pohl said the administration's request for the suspending al-Nashiri's trial is not "in the interest of justice."

Cold blooded murder

NATO's highest ranking general gave orders that opium growers in Afghanistan are to be killed, even if they are not linked to the Afghan insurgency. The order came from the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, US Gen. John Craddock. Der Spiegel's exclusive reporting is summarized here in English, thanks to NRC Handelsblad. 

After the interview

I admit it seemed daunting to do that TV interview, but it's behind me now. They said it is a success, whatever that means. It will be shown next month in some European countries. Sort of cool they shot it in Blu-Ray, the latest improvement in film technology. The interview went on for several hours. An hour after it finally was done, I fell asleep and had a night filled with pleasant dreams.

Scarier than Sarkozy

The grey wolf is back in France after 70 years. Wolf tracks were identified this month in the snow of the Cévennes mountains, in the lower part of the Massif Central, north-west of Avignon. A park ranger also reported seeing a wolf near the Cévenol village of Bondons, close to the ripped carcass of a newborn calf. Here's a report from The Independent.

Fear of pleasure

Eastern Europe is in the grip of a strange form of homophobia, according to a Dutch study. COC-Recherche and the University of Amsterdam find a "significant minority" of 21 - 30 year old males in Poland are exhibiting "negative homophobic behavioral patterns" to hide fear that they would enjoy sexual acts with other males.

Diarist ideology free

Lo and behold, I did not deploy an ideology for The Beach Boys' "Holland" album. Their early sun, surf and hot rod songs became so deeply mired in the mud of American ideology that I firmly rejected such a path. I expect the subject to come up during filming of the interview on Wednesday.

Putin

Here is an excellent interview with Putin for Bloomberg.

True change

While Italian designers seek even more ways to copy one another's boring restrained look, and as western world arbiters of the instant tell us that everyone will become even more conservative because of the economic crises, I see two signs of truly dramatic change going on - and one is diametrically opposed to the another.

Tens of thousands of university students in Europe and some more in North America will get through the crisis by severing their economic dependence upon the mainstream, thus drastically reducing their need for traditional jobs. Their remaining costs will be paid by "jobbing" when it is necessary. The result will be a very large amount of available time which many consider the basis for an informal "cultural year."

Look for students to turn up in Florence, Bologna, Rome and Naples, learning about civilization's zigs and zags, and casting their eyes on art such as the newly refreshed David by Donatello (photo left).

Hundreds of students are already arriving in southern Italy, ready to help plant the fields. 

Against this positive trend, a disturbing development from eastern Europe is hopefully not going to spread. It is about university drop-outs who are seeking to "fit in" to new circles by renouncing their own knowledge in return for adapting nationalist ideas, shades of religious zeal and outspokenly anti-intellectual bigotry. A tragic way to fit in.

Read my mind

Science and medicine have, for some time, been able to help identify specific causes of stress. It's all very straight forward these days using MRI technology. But now, some scientists believe it's possible to learn much more about what we are thinking. Take a look at the video.

Not much new

That is the very ravishing Dakota, above, holding Flash in a Ryan McGinley photograph at the villa in Vermont. It was taken three and one-half years ago, in the same year that Ryan created an extraordinary work of Dakota experiencing an orgasm in the villa's sauna. Today, the New York Times magazine has Ryan showing a few new photos of Dakota experiencing orgasm. Not much new there, sad to say. And, like the song says, "Ain't nothing like the real thing."

Age of Hysteria

A collective nervous breakdown of heretofore unknown enormity now unites defanged yet still rabid investors, the leaders of many nations, hysterical stars of the news media of all continents and general civilians. It is the ultimate concordance of diseased minds. 

Welcome to the Age of Hysteria, your face in the world financial crisis. Soon, you may even qualify for a padded room. A shared room, of course.

The Age of Hysteria is history's first marker of poverty as a desirable, fashionable state of affairs since St. Francis cast off his father's wealth in the early 13th century.  A few years later, the Church paid its ultimate tribute to the emergence of capitalism and gaudy displays of wealth by ordering that members of religious orders which swore poverty be burned to death. 

With the ascendance of money, mankind invented scads of nonsensical phrases to give greed a constantly renewed sheen. One of the most enduring and false was the idea that man shapes his own destiny, meaning he (or she) decides how much money is enough, then goes out and gets it. This deceit had a remarkably long run.

This was part 1.