Category Archives: Politics

The West Wing Tackles the Debt Ceiling

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If you’ve been paying attention to the news in any form, you know that Debtageddon is on the horizon. What’s Debtageddon? It’s the day we hit our debt ceiling, the day we can no longer borrow money as a country and coincidentally the day before my birthday.

Tonight the House of Representatives were unable to pass a vote to raise the debt ceiling. The deadline before we hit true crisis mode is August 3rd. After that, no one knows just how badly our economy will be affected. Michelle Bachman thinks everything will be fine, while economists everywhere else are sounding the alarm.

By the way, pretty sure this is just the Grand Old Party, aka the Republicans and John Boehner, trying to screw me out of a great birthday. You can look at it one of three ways.

  1. My birthday will be followed by the absolute financial crash of America and we will remember it as the day before the end.
  2. Or, if you’re an optimist, all that will happen but we will remember it as the day we no longer gave a damn and had one hell of a party!
  3. Unlikely option, they agree to raise the debt ceiling and August 3rd is uneventful.

Whatever happens, the following clip from the West Wing illustrates what is going on.

It’s scary how many times I have been able to look back at this show and go, oh yeah, that exact thing is happening right now. I have a conspiracy theory that, in an effort to stay relevant a decade after his show would be canceled, Aaron Sorkin traveled to the future. There (here) he ripped headlines from Reuters and brought them back to 1999.

Or perhaps the West Wing is so accurate because it has happened 74 times before…

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Senators Call to End Driving Ban for Saudi Women

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As someone who has spent a decent amount of time in Saudi Arabia and has met many people that this would affect, I’m totally behind it. That being said, I’m not sure we will see anything like this happen within the next decade.

The argument for women not having the right to drive stem from theories like:

  • If they start driving, they’ll start cheating on their husbands
  • After they cheat on their husbands, they will get divorces
  • Driving is too hard for women’s mental capacities to handle
  • Women don’t need to drive

Saudi Arabia is a beautiful, mostly really friendly and misunderstood country. But as with most countries, minority rights always seem to fall to the back burner.

Check out the article from Autoblog:

14 female U.S. senators call on Saudi Arabia to lift female driving ban.

According to Bloomberg, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been gently pushing the Saudi government to lift the ban, and has now been joined by a group of fourteen female American senators in supporting Saudi Women for Driving and their cause. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) is leading the charge from her position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, calling for women’s rights to be honored in a U.S. ally that has proven nothing if not resistant to change.

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President Obama on Death of Osama bin Laden

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President Obama praises those Americans who carried out the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, tells the families of the victims of September 11, 2001 that they have never been forgotten, and calls on Americans to remember the unity of that tragic day. Continue reading →

Bahrain and the Day of Rage

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I’m back in America. Had an awesome time in Saudi Arabia and despite all the turmoil that is going on in the region right now, I felt safe the entire time and can’t wait to go back.

I went to Saudi Arabia to celebrate my dad’s 50th birthday which was the same day as the Bahraini revolution. As a gift to my parents I did not join my friend James in his trip over the causeway to Bahrain for the “Day of Wrath” “Day of Rage” “Revolution” etc etc. Part of me was devastated that I was passing up such an incredible opportunity but the other part of me wanted to do the right and safe thing.  In the end I’m still not sure whether or not I made the right decision but I have a feeling I did…

If you have ever been to Bahrain, you know it’s this really fun, friendly country. Amazing shopping, fabulous restaurants, they serve alcohol, are BIG into family stuff with water parks and all that jazz. As a person of comparative privilege (which is probably everyone reading this), you probably would have no idea there was an issue there.

One of my last photos from Bahrain was from the upscale Monsoon restaurant. This is the Bahrain I know.

Something like half of the people living in Bahrain are ex-Pats. The disparity between classes is so extreme that you almost don’t even see it. It’s like at night time, you don’t notice the black of the sky but instead the white of the moon and stars. Continue reading →