Recognize Armenian Genocide

During the period between 1915 and 1923, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered by Turkey. In August, 2000, the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, promised to let the House vote on a resolution commemorating the Armenian Genocide. In October 2000, and again in July, 2003, he broke this promise, giving in to pressure from the Turkish government, and prevented the vote. Now, he will have a third opportunity to allow congress to recognize these crimes [link to a great article by the sexiest reporter I have ever seen].

The United States has long been willing to look the other way regarding atrocities committed by allies. During the 1980's, when Saddam Hussein was massacring Kurds in northern Iraq [link], the US tried to downplay the tragedy, and in fact, intended to improve relations with Iraq, until the 1990 invasion of Kuwait [link]. Only when Saddam became Public Enemy Number 1 did the US finally recognize the severity of the tragedy, and in fact, used it as a partial justification for deposing him. At the same time that Saddam was gassing Iraqi Kurds, Turkey was carrying out similar violent acts of repression against Turkish Kurds [link], but as Turkey remains a strong ally of the US, condemnation or even acknologment of these events is not forthcoming.

I'm Back

So, I didn't actually find a job, but I did get the fellowship that I had applied for, so I will be able to continue with my Ph.D. work. I don't actually know if I will take the fellowship yet, since I have at least one good job prospect, but regardless, I should be back to posting regularly.

Blog Spam

My blog comments were recently the victim of blog spam! I am only shocked that it didn't happen sooner. I have deleted the comment, and any furthur comments like this will be deleted immediately.

There is no luck yet with my job search, so I am not ready to start publishing again regularly, but I assure you, I will be back eventually.

I just want to share one small story that happened to me today. I was pulled over recently, and I couldn't find my insurance card, so I got a ticket and had to go to court today to prove I actually did have insurance. Based on the offenders in the courtroom, you would think that my neighborhood is 75% Hispanic, although it is actually quite the opposite. One young gentleman made the horrible mistake of wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Che Guevara, and the judge lectured him for ten minutes, through a translator which he had to provide himself, about how Che Guevara tried to violently overthrow the United States government.