Suicidal Rodent Captured on Film

The elderly gentleman who donated half my genetic material took this riveting action shot of a squirrel-like creature pushed to the edge.

Crossing the Street and Succeeding the President

Slate.com has an article by Steven Cook about, among other things, the seemingly chaotic system of traffic in Cairo. Cook argues that the system, while terrifying and responsible for around 6,000 deaths in Egypt per year, is actually supported by a series of informal, unspoken rules and mutual understanding.

People do seem to get along okay on the Cairo streets, and I'd never be confident to cross a similarly chaotic street outside of Egypt. I tried once to cross a busy street in Jerusalem after having been in Egypt for months. I nearly died, of course. The rules were different, and none of the drivers were expecting some jackass to stroll out in the middle of traffic, confident that his posture and attempts at eye contact would communicate his intentions.

The article's interesting and the street-crossing is more of a launching point for the argument about the importance of these informal rules. The Egypt discussion is fairly cursory and doesn't seem to support his argument, really. The presidency is the beginning and end of politics in Egypt, the fact that the constitution says otherwise isn't really relevant in the context of a police state.

It's a tricky issue to discuss really, and Cook manages to do it by conveniently not getting into that much depth in Egypt or Saudi, which he also discusses. There's always the danger that the conclusions people will draw from such a discussion — which is for the most part valid, of course informal social institutions and assumptions support formal governmental institutions — will go to support existing stereotypes, like Arabs aren't ready for democracy or things are so alien here that there's just no trying to understand.

Cook doesn't make either argument, thankfully, but it'd be nice if he came out with a more nuanced conclusion than "awareness of the unwritten rules and norms of politics should provide a more accurate reflection of politics in the Middle East." Well, duh.

A flow like the mighty Nile

I recently came down with a case of an affliction known as 'Cairo Gut.' Back home we call it 'Beaver Fever,' which didn't seem so funny when I was growing up but now strikes me as hilarious. Symptoms of Cairo Gut are best described by my old roommate Tom as "furious ass-pissing."

After a day of seeing my body turn into a shit geyser, with spectacular shows every hour on the hour, I was questioning my desire to go on living. Then my current roommate Kathleen gave me a bottle of Antinal, a super-awesome bacteria-buster. It's one of these four times a day things, but after the first 5-ml dose Old Filthy was stopped up. A couple doses later I'm happy to say my toilet has been weened off its all-liquid diet.